The Priest's Pilgrimage
by SilvorMoon
Summary: Arima's family never expected much of him. Then the god Aurite appeared before him and appointed him his new high priest. Before he can take the job, though, Arima will have to make the journey to the City of Seven Pillars, along the way dealing with odd characters, meddling gods, and his own interfering family.
1. A Holy Calling

When Arima left his house, his family thought he'd gone out to weed the garden. When Arima came back in, they thought he'd gone out of his mind.

As for Arima, he hadn't been thinking of much of anything besides vegetables. The day was a fine one for gardening, warm and sunny, with just enough moisture in the air to keep the ground soft and workable. This year's crops were coming along well, and Arima's mind was full of pleasant homely daydreams about showing prize vegetables at the village fair and what sort of seeds he might be able to find the next time he went to the city. That was about the limit of the excitement in his life: going along with his father to the nearest large town and seeing if the locals had any vegetables or herbs that his garden didn't have yet. If he had any goals in life, it was to someday have a home of his own, and his own garden where he had absolute freedom to plant whatever he cared to.

That was before the light struck him.

It seemed at first like sunlight, as if an obstacle that had been in front of him had suddenly moved away and let the sun shine full upon him, but that was impossible. He'd been sitting out in open ground, and the sun was rising _behind_ him. He raised his head, trying to find the source of the sudden glow.

What he found baffled him. His eyes were telling him that what he was seeing was a young man dressed in simple dark clothing, with strong sunlight falling all around him. What his mind was telling him was that he was looking at something greater than his comprehension could contain. It was telling him that this man didn't just have light shining on him, he wore the sunlight like a crown and flung it over his shoulders as a cloak. It said that he was not so much standing on the ground as that the ground had bowed down to worship at his feet. A god. This could only be a god, and he was standing in Arima's vegetable garden, surrounded by potato plants and digging implements. Arima made a small stunned noise and flung himself face-down on the ground and hoped that this deity would find his slightly belated obeisance worthy and not smite him. This had to be some sort of mistake. Arima was only a gardener, despised by his family for being too lacking in ambition to ever make anything of himself. Surely no god could ever be interested in him.

Then the warmth on his skin increased, and he felt a weight on his shoulder. The god had laid a hand on him.

"You must not bow your head to me." The voice was almost kind. Arima looked up cautiously. The god was bent over him, down on one knee. Arima couldn't quite see the god's face clearly, but he had the feeling that he might be smiling. Very slowly, he pulled himself into a kneeling position.

His visitor nodded and stood straight again, apparently satisfied with the gesture.

"Do you know who I am?" he asked.

"You're one of the gods," said Arima.

"I am Aurite," the god replied, "god of law and order, and I have found you worthy. From here on in, you will be my servant, favored by me above all other mortals."

For a moment, the words didn't seem to make any sense. Favored? What had he done to deserve the favor of a god? This wasn't even your every day sort of god, the kind you might propitiate if you wanted a bit of good luck. This was _Aurite_ , first among the gods who inhabited the Heavenly City. When Chance and Fate had first begun forming the universe out of raw firmament, Aurite had been there behind them putting it all into order. Surely he could have no use for someone whose only talent was taking care of the family vegetable plot.

That was his first reaction. Then something else clicked with him. Aurite had said "servant". It seemed to him suddenly that there could be no greater joy in the world than to do something that would please this marvelous being.

"I don't know what I can do," he said, "but if you command me, I will do my best."

"That's good," said Aurite, "because I have a task in mind for you. My high priest is growing old and can no longer carry out his duties as he once did. It is my will that you should go to the City of Seven Pillars and take his place. Don't worry," he added, forestalling any argument. "The old priest isn't close to dying yet. He knows you're coming, and he's prepared to teach you everything you'll need to do the job. All you have to worry about is getting there."

"I won't let you down," Arima promised. "When do I leave?"

"As soon as possible," said Aurite. "Now, listen closely, because there are rules you must follow on this journey."

Arima settled himself into an attentive posture, crossing his legs and setting his elbows on his knees to prop his chin in his hands. "I'm listening."

"Good," said Aurite. "First of all, you may not take any food or water, or any money, or anything you intend to sell or trade. You may bring a blanket and spare clothing, any mementoes of home that you intend to keep for yourself, and a weapon if you are comfortable with one. You may not bring any companions with you when you leave but you may travel with others that you meet along the way. You may not ask to be given anything by anyone, but you may offer to do a service in exchange for something you need. The important thing is for you to remember that although you won't always see me, I will be watching over you on your journey, and when you call on me, I will hear you. As long as you trust me and follow my rules, I will make sure that you reach your destination safely. If you meet any trouble or danger along the way, you must accept that I have allowed it to happen as a test of your devotion, and trust that I will see you safely through it. Do you understand?"

"Yes, my lord," Arima answered promptly. "Don't worry about a thing. I'll leave today."

He sensed more than saw that the god was smiling at him. "I expected you to. Now, make haste." Once again, he reached out to rest a hand briefly on Arima's shoulder. "And don't forget - from the moment I declared you my chosen priest, we were connected. I will always be protecting you."

"Thank you, my lord," said Arima, honestly grateful. "I'll do my best for you."

The god smiled at him one last time... and then he was gone. Suddenly, the garden was just a garden again, full of cabbages and bean sprouts, and the sun was rising behind him instead of flaring in great golden fans around him. Arima sat where he was, trying to catch his breath and absorb what had just happened to him.

 _I just saw a god. I'm going to be a priest._ Both of those sounded equally unlikely, and yet, he had no doubt that they were both true. He never could have imagined something like this happening to him, and that meant it had to be real. He still wasn't quite sure why Aurite would have chosen him out of all the people in the world, but now that he had been chosen, he was determined to do the best job he could.

As his original shock cleared away, a new emotion began to make itself known. This one was harder to place, because it was something he had rarely felt in his life before: a bubbling excitement, a sense of joy. He had never been anyone special before. No one had ever taken any notice of him beyond the fact that he was the one who pulled the weeds and harvested the beans. Now he had been noticed, and not just by anyone, but by one of the greatest of the gods. He'd been given an important task to do, one that would make him renowned throughout the world for years to come, and perhaps even give him a place in history after his death. He was about to embark on an adventure. Life seemed suddenly full of possibilities.

 _I am going to become a servant of Aurite. I'm going to spend the rest of my life working with him._ Thinking back on the awe he'd felt when he'd realized that the being who had set the sun in motion and hung the stars in the heavens had been smiling at _him_ , it seemed to him that there could be no more desirable prospect, not if they'd offered him a crown and kingdom for his own.

After a few seconds of simply sitting there in a daze, it dawned on him that if he wanted any of the things he was dreaming about to happen, he had better get up and hit the road. He got up carefully and dusted off his clothes. It was a shame to walk off in the middle of the weeding, but he consoled himself with the knowledge that one of his many siblings and cousins could take care of the job just as easily. He could leave them a note, telling them what needed to be done. First, though, he'd need to pack. Obviously Aurite wanted him to travel light, but he could at least fetch his weapons and a change of clothes, and one or two other things he thought might make the journey a bit more pleasant. Making mental lists, he wandered into the house and found his mother and his aunt in the kitchen gossiping while they prepared lunch.

"Oh, are you done in the garden already?" his aunt asked. "That didn't take long."

"No, I'm not finished, but I'm afraid I have something else I need to do," he replied. "Mother, where is our _Book of the Gods_?"

"On the shelf in the sitting room," his mother answered automatically, "but what on earth do you need it for?"

"I want to borrow it for a while," said Arima. "I need to refresh my memory on a few things."

His aunt gave him a suspicious look. Aunt Mizumi had never really approved of him. She felt a man of eighteen should already be married and settled down and raising a family, preferably while doing proper "man's work", which apparently did not involve planting flowers in the window boxes. Arima was not sure she'd think much of the priesthood, either.

"Piety is admirable," she said, "but there's a time and a place for everything. If you're going to claim the garden as your sole responsibility, the least you could do is stick with it. It's no good saying you're going to take care of it and then wander off to do something else."

"I understand," he said calmly, "but something important has come up, and I need to leave immediately. Ask Kiyoko to do it. She's helped me before. She knows what needs to be done." He crossed the kitchen and headed for the sitting room, half-hearing his aunt complaining behind him. Apparently she didn't think gardening was a fit job for her daughter, either.

He found _The Book of the Gods_ right where he'd been told he would: crammed onto a shelf between a book of children's stories and the latest copy of the farmer's almanac. He opened it and leafed through its pages. Nearly every household had a copy of this book, even those that didn't swear devotion to any particular god. It was not considered one of the holy books, the way that, say, High Priestess Akemi's _Life of Pearlite_ was a holy book. It was simply a handy reference for mortals who might find themselves unexpectedly encountering a god (not, apparently, as uncommon an occurrence as Arima had once thought) and wanted to know what to do about it. It contained listings for all the of the major gods and some of the more popular or interesting minor ones, describing their abilities and spheres of influence, such biographical information as was known about them, the rules their followers were expected to adhere to, what sort of offerings would best please them, the dates of all their holy days, and what they might look like when you saw them. Naturally, Arima flipped to the first entry, which detailed the particulars on Aurite. Yes, the book had described him correctly: not tall but imposing, possessing an indefinable air of power and control, generally dressed in austere dark clothing and surrounded by a golden aura. Arima nodded and closed the book. He'd take it along with him to study. If he was going to be Aurite's priest from now on, he might as well start following his dictates right away instead of waiting around for the old high priest's instructions. It sounded like the old man was fading fast, and there wouldn't be time to waste.

Even as he came to that decision, he felt a warm glow creep over him. The warmth seemed to come from outside him, and the sensation, though pleasant, was unfamiliar enough to make him stop and take notice of it. After a moment, he realized that what he was feeling was Aurite's approval.

 _He was telling the truth - we really are connected now._ So this was how priests always seemed to know what their gods wanted done, even when the gods themselves didn't appear to tell them so. That was nice. It was good to know that he would be able to tell when what he was doing was pleasing to his new master, and when he had gone astray. He appreciated that. It gave him a pleasant sense of being cared for and protected. He tucked the book under his arm and started upstairs to gather his things.

He didn't make it that far. His mother had planted herself squarely in his path.

"I don't know what's gotten into you this morning," she scolded. "You're always such a dutiful boy. Why are you suddenly so determined to get out of doing your job?"

"I'm sorry," he said, ducking around her and continuing up the stairs, "but I really do have something more important to do today."

His mother stared after him, looking unconvinced. "Oh, really? And what, pray tell, might that be?"

Arima stepped through the door of his room and began rummaging around in his wardrobe. If he was going to be traveling, he was going to need his good cloak, the one he usually only wore in the worst winter weather, or when he was traveling with a caravan to one of the big cities. Now, where in the world had he put it?

"I'm going to the City of Seven Pillars," he said, as his mother followed him up the stairs.

"What in the name of Pearlite's pink pajamas are you planning on doing there?" his mother asked. She sounded surprised. He couldn't blame her. The City of Seven Pillars was a good distance away, and he didn't know anyone who had actually been there.

"I'm going to the temple of Aurite to become a priest," he explained, matter-of-factly. Ah, there was that cloak, and his good walking boots with it, down on the bottom shelf.

"A priest?" his mother repeated. "What on earth possessed you to get an idea like that? You're no more fit to be a priest than I am."

"I thought as much, too," said Arima calmly. He was looking through his drawers now, pulling out spare clothes, "but Aurite has commanded me, and I can't let him down."

Apparently that was just a bit too much for his mother. She simply stood staring at him, his mouth hanging open, as he began folding up clean shirts and tucking them into a haversack.

" _Aurite_ told you," she said at last. "You think _Aurite_ , god of law and order, came out to you in your vegetable garden and told you that he wanted you to go to some city weeks away from here so you can become a priest."

"Yes," he said calmly. The last of his spare trousers went into the haversack. He began scanning the contents of his shelves, looking for anything else he thought he might need. He had his knife strapped to his belt already - no one with any sense ever spent much time outdoors without a weapon, even on civilized land - but he found his lash on a top shelf and hooked it around his belt on his other side. It was a better weapon than the knife, anyway, in terms of being able to get dangers out of the way without hurting them more than he had to. "The old high priest is dying, you see, and Aurite wants me to take his place. I told him I don't know anything about being a priest, but he says they'll be glad to teach me when I get there."

His mother's expression took on a look of concern.

"Son," she said gently, "you know, it's a bit warm out today. Do you think that perhaps with the heat and all, you might have gotten a bit... confused?"

He turned to regard her. The expression on his face must have been quite a sight, because she took an involuntary step backwards. He was, after all, the most tractable of her children, nieces and nephews included. He never fought or argued. He simply did what he was told. Today, however, he had orders from a higher power, one whose authority over him was greater even than that of his parents. He'd made up his mind. He was going, and there would be no talking him out of it.

"If you're saying you think that I'm a bit sun-touched, and that I just imagined seeing a god," he said calmly, "then I'm sorry to tell you that you're wrong. I did see Aurite, and he spoke to me. He put his hand on my shoulder. He _smiled_ at me. I never could have imagined how that would feel on my own. He has called me, and that means I am going. With or without your permission," he added firmly.

His mother was looking thoroughly flustered by now.

"I... see," she said, voice shaking slightly. "I... I'll just tell your father then, won't I?"

"If you like," he said. "I'll come down to say goodbye in just a minute."

His mother babbled something not quite comprehensible, something about a safe journey and making sure not to forget anything, and then departed down the stairs in something of a hurry. Arima watched her go, feeling not quite as sorry as he felt he ought to be.

"She didn't take that as well as I'd hoped," he murmured.

Well, that was too bad. He was far beyond changing his mind at this point, so instead, he sat down at his desk, took out a clean sheet of paper, and began writing down instructions for the care of his garden while he was away.

He was just making a notation regarding where they would be able to find the best seeds to replace the perennials, when he heard his father's heavy tread on the staircase. He hastily finished his note and set his pen aside. Something told him that he didn't want to be caught sitting down if he could help it. Today was not the day to show even that much weakness.

"Hello, son," said his father, just a bit too heartily. "I hear you've had an interesting morning."

"Yes, Father," he answered calmly. "A very interesting morning."

"Your mother tells me," his father went on, "that you've decided to join the priesthood."

"It wasn't so much a decision," said Arima. "I was commanded. But I think," he added reflectively, "that I'd have joined anyway, even if he hadn't asked."

"I see," said his father, who obviously didn't. "Well, I'm sure that's good. I'm glad you've finally found some purpose in your life."

Arima narrowed his eyes, sensing a trap. "I suppose so."

"Now, I understand that this is a new idea and it's very exciting," his father continued, "but I don't want you getting carried away. It's a long way to the City of Seven Pillars. If you go there, we probably won't be able to visit you very often. There will be a lot of dangers on the road between here and there. I think maybe it might be better if you took some time to think this all through carefully, make sure it's really what you want to do, before you make any decisions that can't be taken back."

"I know it's a long journey," said Arima patiently, "but you don't have to worry about me. Aurite has promised to take care of me, and he doesn't lie."

That did not appear to comfort his father as much as it should have.

"Yes, well," his father said. "Still, maybe you had better start small and work your way up to being a high priest? There's a temple of Aurite over in Oakroot..."

"Oakroot is to the north," said Arima, quite reasonably, he thought. "The City of Seven Pillars is to the southeast. It would be quite out of my way to go to Oakroot, and Aurite made it clear that there isn't time for delay. As he said, the old priest may not live very much longer, and every day I spend on the road is a day he could be teaching me what I need to know. I need to get there as soon as possible."

"Still," said his father, still straining to sound calm, "maybe you had better at least wait for the next caravan? It will be much safer if you go with a group."

"There's no knowing when one of those will come along," said Arima. "Besides, I'm not supposed to ask for someone to come with me. I'm not sure hiring a place in a caravan wouldn't be cheating."

His father lost his patience. "Look, son, I'm saying this for your own good. I don't know what's come over you, but you can't just up and leave home chasing a will-o-wisp. You are not leaving, and that's final. You're going to stay here for a few days and think all this through. In a week or so, if you're still sure this is really what you want to do, then we'll talk about you going. Right now, though, I think you've just had too much sun and you need to rest and clear your mind."

"But Father..."

"Don't you 'but Father' me, young man. I've made my decision. You are not leaving today, and I don't lay very good odds on you leaving tomorrow either. You are going to stay right here and rest, and that's _final_."

"I'm going and you can't stop me," said Arima.

The two of them stood and stared at each other for a moment. It dawned on Arima that he was actually an inch or so taller than his father - not quite as broad, but his work at hoeing and weeding had strengthened his arms and shoulders, while his father was beginning to go soft and flabby as middle age caught up to him. If it came to a physical confrontation, there was a good chance that Arima would come out on top. His father seemed to realize that too. The man's face began to go red.

"Look here," he said, "I am your father and you will obey me."

"You are my father," Arima agreed calmly, "but you're not a god."

For a moment, his father seemed to swell like an angry bullfrog, and for a moment, Arima thought his father was going to take a swing at him. Then the man deflated.

"Fine," he said. "Be that way. We'll just have to do this some other way."

He turned on his heel and stormed out of the room, shutting the door firmly behind him. Then Arima heard a click, and realized that his father had locked the door and shut him in. Arima went to press his ear to the crack, and heard muttered conversations going on outside in the hall: "...not being reasonable..." "...never seen him like..." "...obviously, the heat..." "...for a doctor?"

Frustrated, Arima rattled at the door handle, but it refused to release him. With a sigh, he flung himself onto his bed to ponder his options. It was almost funny, he thought: all his life, his family had derided him for never showing any ambition, never attempting to make something of himself, always going with the flow. Now, for the first time in his life, he really wanted to do something, and everyone seemed to take it as a sign that he'd lost his mind.

Well, he supposed he couldn't blame them. Everyone knew the gods were real - it was a bit silly to deny it, since if you did, said gods were liable to appear in your living room and explain to you in detail why you were wrong - but that didn't mean that everyone saw them on a regular basis. The gods mostly seemed to understand that humanity didn't like being ordered around, so they tended to do their work at a distance, leading the course of civilization so unobtrusively that it was easy to forget they were doing anything at all. Generally it was only priests and heroes who got to see the gods face to face.

 _But I did see one, and I am going to be a priest. All priests must have had a point in their lives when they weren't priests yet._

Well, Aurite had promised him challenges. He hadn't expected them to start before he'd even left the house, but now that they had, he supposed he would have to deal with them. Aurite had said that nothing would come his way that he couldn't get out of somehow, which meant that there had to be a way out of this. He got up again, and this time pressed his ear to the floorboards. There was a knothole in his floor, mostly hidden by his wardrobe, which gave him a pretty fair view of one corner of the kitchens if he peered through it. He hadn't used it much since childhood, partly because he was old enough that he no longer found the idea of spying on the adults to be exciting, and partly because he was no longer small enough to easily wedge his head and shoulders under the footed wardrobe. Now he couldn't quite manage to see, but he could hear through it well enough. His mother and his aunt were talking worriedly to each other. Arima gathered that one of his cousins had been dispatched to town to send for a healer. He frowned at that. There were healers who relied on magic to do their work, but those were few and far between, and often expensive besides. His town only had a general sort of hedge doctor, who distilled potions made from roots and leaves, and made up evil-smelling poultices. Arima had generally gotten along with the old man, back when it was just the two of them chatting about the qualities of herbs together, but he didn't trust the doctor to tell the difference between being sun-touched and god-touched.

Still, it meant a delay. Even running at full speed, it would take a half an hour just to reach the village and find the doctor, even more time to convince the old man that there was a problem and pry him away from whatever he was doing, and more time still to actually get him back to the house, since he didn't have a horse and couldn't run the way a young man could. Make it at least two hours, then, before someone came looking for Arima. Plenty of time to make an escape, if he could figure out how. Arima looked thoughtfully around his room.

 _Only one thing to try,_ he decided.

The first thing he did was move the wardrobe. It was a heavy piece of furniture, made by his great-grandfather out of solid oak, and it took all Arima's strength to shove it across the uneven floorboards and wedge it in front of the door. Once that was done, he leaned against it a moment, catching his breath and listening for any signs that someone had heard him. No one came banging up the stairs to ask what he was doing, so he assumed he was safe for the moment. Not that there was much anyone could do to him now. His door opened inwards, and with the heavy wardrobe in front of it, he doubted they would be getting in any time soon. Having bought himself some time, he turned his attention back to his packing. Spare clothes - already done. Blanket - ripped off his bed and quickly stuffed in along with the clothes. Weapons - already at his belt. Anything else? He considered before adding a couple of small trinkets: a tortoiseshell comb that had belonged to his maternal grandmother, a toy dragon his favorite uncle had carved, an embroidered handkerchief his oldest sister had given him as a party favor at her wedding. Those were all the treasures he owned, and none of them seemed like the sorts of things that would violate Aurite's rule about things that could be sold. He wasn't entirely sure right now that he wanted to trust his family to send them on to him once he got where he was going. He looked around his room, satisfying himself that there was nothing else here he needed to take with him.

 _I'm not actually going to miss this place very much,_ he realized. He loved his family, yes, but he loved them because they were his family, not because they were the sorts of people he would have voluntarily spent time with if he'd had a full range of choices. It was probably better that he was leaving. He'd just never had anywhere else to go before.

But now he did. He opened the window and looked down. His room was on the second floor of the house, overlooking the back garden. From where he stood now, he could easily see the place where Aurite had manifested in front of him. It didn't look any different from the rest of the garden, now, except that he'd stopped weeding before he got to that point. Even so, he was never going to forget the sight of it for as long as he lived. For now, though, he turned his attention to something a little more close at hand. He was a good distance off the ground, true, but not so far that he couldn't escape if he was careful. There was a wood pile nearby, with logs neatly stacked half the height of the house. It was right next to the back door, where someone in the kitchen could easily reach out and grab one without having to go out in rainy or snowy weather. It was covered over by a small shed, nothing more than a shingled roof supported by five sturdy beams. Arima leaned out the window and eyed it thoughtfully. It was not directly below him, but...

He paused to listen again. Judging by the voices he could hear drifting up from downstairs, everyone who was still in the house was gathered in the front parlor to await the arrival of the doctor. At the very least, he couldn't hear anyone else moving around on the upper floor. That was good.

Arima slung his haversack over one shoulder and pushed open the windows. Very carefully, he climbed onto the window ledge and balanced there precariously. Then, even more carefully, he straightened up so that he was standing with his feet braced on the ledge and his hands gripping the upper part of the frame. He shuffled over to the far left side of the window and then, slowly, extended a foot sideways, leaning out until he could rest it on the ledge of the next window over. He reached out his right hand and managed to get hold of the next window frame. He shifted his weight onto the new ledge and pulled himself across. Moving in this spider-like fashion, he crept across the window of his aunt and uncle's bedroom, then across his youngest brother's. From there, he dropped as lightly as he could down onto the roof of the wood shed. It wobbled a little, but supported his weight. From there, it was easy enough to swing himself down onto the ground. He was tempted then to pause there, to wait and hear if someone had heard the thud of him dropping onto the shed, but he fought the impulse. Whether they had heard him or not, he needed to get out of here right away.

Not by the road, though. The doctor would be coming that way, along with the boy sent to fetch him. They would recognize him, and then there would be trouble. The longer he could keep anyone from realizing he was gone, the better off he'd be. Fortunately, he knew the woods in this area like the back of his hand. He'd gone there nearly every day in the warmer months, looking for herbs and nuts to liven up the daily fare, or for things he could try to cultivate in his own more civilized plots. The deer trails and watering holes were as familiar to him as they would be to any hunter or traveler. His siblings knew them, too, but hopefully by the time anyone realized he was gone and thought to look that way, he would be well out of their reach. Hopefully.

Arima made for the nearest break in the trees and began crunching his way through the fallen leaves until he hit on a path he knew. It was little more than a rabbit run, but that made it less likely that anyone would think to look for him on it. From there, he picked up his pace, following a route that he knew would lead him, if he followed it long enough, all the way around the village and eventually spill him out onto the road that led to it from the south.

 _And south is where I need to go._

The thought was oddly exhilarating. He had often been to Oakroot in the north, and sometimes to Mountcleft even further north. He'd made yearly sojourns to Wellspring in the east for their annual summer festival. He'd even been with his father all the way to the western City of Golden Towers, once, to see a prince crowned king. But he had never had any reason to go south before, and he'd never gone alone. He had never defied his family before. He had never in his life had a cause he cared passionately about. Everything was about to change for him.

 _Thank you, Aurite,_ he thought, as he wove his way through the underbrush. _I think this is the best thing that's ever happened to me._


	2. The Gardens of Black Swan Manor

Arima pressed himself hard against the side of a building and watched as the town guard passed by. He had learned the hard way, back in the last village he'd passed through, what happened when he got too close to town guards.

 _It's funny,_ he thought wryly, as the guard turned a corner and vanished from view. _My family never wanted much to do with me when I lived with them. Now that I'm gone, they can't wait to get me back._

The first village he'd passed through, a tiny hamlet called Pines, had come as rude shock to him. He had gone into town, tired, dirty, and aching for a hot bath and a hot meal, and found that word of his escape had preceded him. His family, it seemed, had actually paid one of the local messenger services to put out the word that the son of a well-to-do merchant had been stricken with some sort of brain-fever, and was now wandering the wilderness claiming to be on a mission from the gods. A seasoned messenger on a fast horse could go south a lot faster than a man on foot who wasn't used to walking, and Arima had just barely managed to avoid being grabbed up by the local gendarmes and tossed into the holding cells to wait for his family to come collect him.

Still, he was a fast learner. He'd only had to make that mistake once before he knew better. Now he knew the rules. He could talk safely enough to farmers living out in the middle of nowhere, people the messengers wouldn't have thought to speak to, people who might have a bit of farm work that he could offer to do in exchange for a meal and a night in their barn. He was safe enough in large cities, where folks tended to mind their own business, as long as he avoided whatever the local equivalent of a town watch was. Ordinary people were too wrapped up in their own lives to care about one more traveler looking to chop a bit of wood or peel some potatoes in exchange for some soup and a bit of bread. As long as he didn't cause any trouble or say anything that might make them remember the story of the runaway boy, they didn't make the connection. Probably, he thought, his parents had given the messengers the idea that he was openly raving, and would be found standing on a street corner declaring that the world must fall down and repent of their wicked ways to avoid the just and holy wrath of his god. No one was really looking for a quiet, sensible young man who just wanted to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. Fortunately, the City of Seven Pillars was a thriving metropolis, a place where merchants, scholars, priests, and socialites of all types gathered. No one ever seemed suspicious about him asking how to get there and how long they thought it might take.

The answer, unfortunately, was: too long. He had so little experience with travel that he had vaguely assumed that it would only take him a day or three to get where he was going, as it had with the other places he'd visited in the past. Knowing that it could take him weeks of weary walking was a daunting prospect.

 _Still, I am making progress. I just have to keep going._

He slipped out of the alley and continued on his way. He was already at the edges of this town, and if he didn't dawdle, he was sure he could be well out of the patrolled areas by the time the guard came around again. At least it was daytime. During the day, he felt safe walking the main roads and mingling with the crowds, but once night began to approach, the crowds thinned and the number of guards increased. Then he had to be more circumspect, choosing a route that would keep him out of sight.

 _What I need,_ he told himself, _is a way to actually build up some supplies._

He'd been managing well enough so far, just by exchanging an afternoon's work for a night's room and board, but he knew he couldn't keep that up forever. Sooner or later, he would reach a point where there would be no friendly farmers to provide meals and lodging, and he was no kind of hunter. He needed something he could fall back on when he was well out of civilization. Besides, having to keep stopping to work was slowing him down. He would make much better time if he didn't need to spend a few hours of every day doing chores. Besides, if he had his own supplies, he could circumvent the cities instead of passing through them, which would keep him safe from prying guards.

 _And surely they'll leave me alone eventually. My family can't have sent messengers all the way to the City of Seven Pillars, can they?_

He was still mulling over this problem as he left the town behind him and made his way back out into open country again. Today was a good day to travel. The last two days, it had drizzled, leaving him slogging through mud and stifling in his heavy rain cloak, but today things were drying off and the sky was a cloudless blue. He was actually singing a bit as he ambled down the road, an old folk song about a wicked man who had tried to trick his way out of being punished by Aurite and had ended up getting himself into worse trouble than he'd been in before. It had always been a favorite of Arima's, even before he'd met the god himself.

He was just taking a deep breath to launch into the chorus when something stopped him. A breeze had brushed past him just then, and the scent it had carried made him stop in his tracks. The air smelled of flowers, as powerfully as if someone had mysteriously upended several barrels of perfume out here in the wilderness. Arima breathed in again, more slowly this time, trying to pinpoint the source of the scent.

Just up ahead, he could see that the road forked, with the wider path angling off to his right and a narrower but smoother track going off to the left. A signboard at the juncture said that following the path to the right would take him to the village of Greenwater Creek, while the left-hand path led to Black Swan Manor. It was from the left that the scent of flowers was coming.

Arima wavered. Greenwater Creek was definitely his next destination, if he wanted to get to the City of Seven Pillars. On the other hand, the one thing he had missed most of all when he'd left home had been his garden. He just wasn't convinced that his family would look after it the way he had, and then what would become of it? At any rate, he wasn't entirely convinced that he would have a lot of time for gardening, if he was going to be busy learning how to be a priest. He had never heard that priests were much for gardening, unless they served one of the nature gods who were in charge of that sort of thing. He would have dearly loved to have taken a look at whatever flowers were producing such a wonderful scent.

 _If the scent is this strong, the source can't be very far out of my way,_ he reasoned. _Besides, if there's a garden, there must be people there to enjoy it. Perhaps they'll let me do some work for them in exchange for supplies. It will save me time in the long run._

With his mind made up, he turned and walked down the left-hand path.

He hadn't gone very far before he came to a fence. It was a black wrought-iron fence, surmounted with fanciful curlicues and flourishes that Arima eventually decided were meant to represent feathers blowing in a breeze. This, he decided, must be the border that surrounded Black Swan Manor. At first, the view beyond the fence disappointed him, showing him only what might be described as "parkland": swaths of grass interrupted by trees and the occasional boulder or bits of decorative ruins, the sort of thing rich people liked to have on their land so that they could pretend to be enjoying nature while still having everything tidy and contained. Then Arima came to a patch of ground that looked like it was being worked on, full of holes and workmen and half-filled planters. Then he passed a high hedge that he could not see over, nor could he guess what was on the other side.

Then, at last, he found the flower garden, and he had to stop and stare. Arima was familiar with flowers. He found them often enough in his rambles through the woods, and many of his herbs put out pleasant-smelling blossoms in the spring. He even had a couple of window planters on the ground floor, where he grew flowers to liven up the house's facade. Mostly, though, flower gardens were the sort of luxury he'd only ever dreamed of having. His family might be well-off, but they did not own so much land or have so much money that they could afford to have acres and acres of flowers just to enjoy the sight and smell of them. But that was exactly what this was. To his dazzled eyes, it looked as though someone had gathered every type of flower that had ever existed and arrayed them before him the way a court treasurer might array the crown jewels in front of the king. He had never seen so many different colors in one place before, and the scent was so thick he almost thought he could see it. He never could have imagined something like this existed outside the Heavenly City.

"Oh! An admirer!" caroled a voice.

Arima was jolted out of his reverie, and he looked around for the source of the voice. What he saw was a young man, only a few years older than himself. He was dressed in fine silk hose and a flowing white shirt with ruffles at the sleeves, and his cravat was pinned in place with a jeweled brooch. He had the fair skin and slim hands of a nobleman, the slim build of a dancer, wavy hair the color of gold, and very bright blue-green eyes. He was smiling delightedly, as if finding dusty wanderers on his doorstep was something he eagerly looked forward to.

"Have you come to admire my garden?" he asked.

"Ah... yes," said Arima. "That is to say, I didn't come this way just for that purpose, but when I knew it was here I couldn't help but come here to see it."

"Of course, of course," said the young man. "It _is_ marvelous, isn't it? Please, don't stand out there in the road - come inside and have a closer look. I do so love having visitors."

Unable to resist this show of what was apparently genuine hospitality, Arima followed this amiable dandy around a corner and to a tall gate, whose double doors were embellished with two black swans, wings outstretched. They were locked, but the young man hastily unfastened them and ushered Arima inside.

"I," said the young man grandly, "am Lord Moteo Kurotori. And who might you be?"

Arima looked at him thoughtfully, trying to find any sign of recognition or duplicity. The last thing he needed was for a nobleman to realize who he was. Finding nothing but honest interest, he replied, "My name is Arima. I'm... a gardener. I'm on my way to the City of Seven Pillars. I've been offered a very good job there, you see, in the household of a great man." Honest enough, as far as it went.

"A gardener!" Kurotori exclaimed. "How simply delightful! You must have been sent by the gods."

"How do you mean?" Arima asked.

"Just now," said Kurotori, "I am in the process of putting in a new garden. You see, I am a follower of the great god Pearlite, and this garden is to be made in his honor. I intend for it to be the most beautiful garden in all the land, so every part of it must be perfect. The trouble is, I'm having difficulty in finding people fit to work on it. All the people in these parts are mere country bumpkins. They know how to plant turnips well enough, but they have no sense of _artistry_. You, though, I can see, are a man of some quality, a real professional. If you'd be willing to help me with this job, I'd be more than happy to repay you handsomely."

"Well, I don't know," said Arima slowly. "Like I said, I already have a job offer, and I really don't feel that I can turn it down."

"I see your point," said Kurotori, "and I commend you for your resolution, but don't turn me down so soon. This would only be a temporary job. Stay for a few days, long enough to get things started properly. That's all I ask of you. Once you've got the outlines done, someone else can fill in the details."

"Well, perhaps if it's only for a few days," said Arima slowly.

Kurotori looked delighted. "That's the spirit!"

He looked so happy that Arima had to smile back. "Don't look so excited. You haven't seen what sort of work I do, yet. I might be no better than your country bumpkins."

"Nonsense," said Kurotori briskly. "Don't be so modest! You came out of your way just to have a look at my flowers, and that speaks well of your judgment. You did want to see my flowers, didn't you?"

"Well, yes..."

Arima had barely gotten the words out before Kurotori was seizing him by the arm and all but dragging him up the path.

"Don't be shy!" he said. "Nothing makes me happier than having someone appreciate my work."

Arima assumed that by "my work", Kurotori meant that he had designed the layout and had someone else do all the labor of digging and planting and weeding and watering. Those slender hands had never picked up a trowel, of that Arima was certain. Still, Arima had to admit, if Kurotori had designed these gardens, he'd done a spectacular job of it. Arima's eyes were accustomed to straight rows of vegetables, each in their neat little plots. He'd never seen flowers spread out across a lawn like paint across canvas, never imagined the ways the colors and heights and shapes of them could be arranged to create living works of art. He was more than happy to be dazzled by everything Kurotori had to show him. He let his new friend babble about the various flowers without really listening to him. Instead, Arima gave over all his attention to admiring the plants, the shapes of their petals and the depths of their colors, the way their perfumes blended to please the nose the way their appearance pleased the eye.

 _To work in a garden like this wouldn't just be a job, it would be a pleasure._

"And now let me show you my plans," said Kurotori.

Reluctantly, Arima allowed himself to be dragged away from the garden and into the house. He'd never seen a house quite like this, either. It didn't delight him the way the garden had, but it certainly impressed him. He'd thought his family was well-off, being able to afford a fine two-story house with plenty of land around it. Compared to that, this was like living in a jewelry box. The rooms and halls Kurotori dragged him through dazzled his eyes. He registered that they were walking on soft carpets worked with elaborate designs, that all the walls were papered and stenciled, that there were many grand paintings surrounded by elaborate gilt frames, that the ceilings were hung with chandeliers dripping with crystals, that all of the furniture was made of extravagantly carved wood and upholstered with silk and velvet. Arima was uncomfortably aware that his shoes were dirty and his clothes still carried with them a faint essence of the barns he'd been sleeping in.

Kurotori led him into a small office that was mercifully less frilled and furbelowed than the rest of the house, having mostly solid wood furniture without a lot of expensive fabrics covering them. While Arima gingerly settled himself into one of these wooden chairs, Kurotori took a scroll of paper out of a drawer and unrolled it on the table in front of him.

"This is what I have in mind," he said, and he was off, describing the exotic flowers he was having imported, the fountain he was having installed, the trees he was having planted, the high-grade crushed marble that would be paving the paths. Clearly no expense was being spared. Arima allowed himself to be impressed, nodded his head, and said all the right things. This seemed to be the right way to handle Kurotori. The more Arima nodded and went "ahh, that's wonderful", the brighter Kurotori's eyes shone and the more animated his movements became.

"So," he said at last, "do you think you can do the work?"

"I think so," said Arima, casting his eyes over the plans one more time. "I've never done anything quite like this before, but..."

"I have complete faith in you," said Kurotori. "Of course, I'm willing to pay you for your time. How much do you think you'll need? Does twenty sols a day sound fair?"

Twenty sols a day was too much to pay any gardener, even one working in a garden like this. Arima shook his head.

"All I need," he said, "is enough supplies to get me to the City of Seven Pillars."

Kurotori pressed his lips together. Arima had a sense of a man who rarely if ever frowned because he was afraid it would ruin his face, and was now trying very hard not to spoil his record.

"If you insist," he said at last, "but you might at least let me offer you room and board."

"That, I will accept," said Arima gratefully. He would be glad to sleep in a real bed again, and maybe have a real bath.

"Wonderful!" said Kurotori delightedly. "Then it's settled. You will stay here for a while. I'll have someone air out a guest room for you. You can turn your clothes over to the maids - they'll have some clean things sent up to you, and you can have a bath, and I'll order the chef to start preparing a special dinner..."

He bubbled over with plans, as filled with childlike delight as anyone Arima had ever met. Arima stifled a small sigh. It looked as though, whether he liked it or not, he was staying here.

* * *

The next three days passed pleasantly enough. Every morning, Arima woke up in the comfortable (if, in his opinion, slightly overdecorated) rooms his host had provided for him. He ate breakfast in bed, served to him by an attentive maid. Lord Kurotori, he gathered, preferred to sleep in to what Arima considered a scandalously late hour, and then spent another hour or two fussing with his hair and clothes, but he usually emerged sometime mid-morning to see how his garden was coming along. The answer was always "quite well". Arima had thrown himself into his work, and spent every morning in a flurry of planting, mulching, weeding, watering, digging, and pruning. Lord Kurotori could not have been a better employer. Everything Arima asked for, from new gardening gloves to extra help with the manual labor, was supplied for him almost the instant he asked for it. The man was equally generous with praise, always happy to express his pleasure at what a good job Arima was doing with the work. When the noonday sun grew too hot for work, Kurotori would invite Arima inside, and they would dine together. He was good company - he was interested in music and art, and could talk fluently and entertainingly about them for hours. He seemed happy to have someone to talk to, and it wasn't long before Arima began thinking of him as a friend.

At no point did Arima hear anything from Aurite, good or ill. Every night, Arima dutifully recited the prayers suggested by _The Book of the Gods_ , but he never got any response. A small, treacherous part began to wonder if perhaps his parents had been right, and he _had_ been dreaming that he'd seen a god. After all, wasn't it just a little unlikely that someone as great as Aurite should choose him for anything? And if he had, why wasn't he answering now, if only to scold Arima for dallying on his way to the temple? Shouldn't the fact that he wasn't mean that he didn't care that Arima had stopped here? After all, he was happy here. He had work to do that he enjoyed, and he'd found someone pleasant to pass the time with. He was making Kurotori happy. He was certain that the young lord wouldn't mind at all if Arima just stayed here forever, caring for his beautiful gardens. It would be a better life than he'd ever hoped for before the day he'd set out for Aurite's temple.

All this was going through the back of his mind one evening at dinner. Lord Kurotori, however, did not seem to sense his preoccupation. He chattered away as usual: about the theater he owned and the dance he planned to perform there, about the new clothes he'd ordered, about the artist he'd hired to come and paint a portrait for him.

"You care a great deal about your appearance," Arima observed, only half-paying attention.

"But of course," said Kurotori, unoffended. "I am, after all, a follower of Pearlite. One of his first decrees is that his followers should take care of their appearance, and present their best face to the world. Followers of Pearlite are always to be well-dressed and well-groomed, to the limits of their ability."

"I see," said Arima. "You're very devoted to him, then?"

"Oh, completely," said Kurotori. "I live my life in the pursuit of beauty. There is nothing better in the world, in my opinion."

"Hmm," said Arima. He wasn't quite sure he agreed, but he decided it was probably better not to say so. Certainly there was nothing _wrong_ with wanting to make the world a more beautiful place.

After dinner, he returned to his room and took out his copy of _The Book of the Gods_. Rather than flip it to the chapter on Aurite, he opened it instead to the part that focused on Pearlite, and settled himself down for a careful perusal. When he had read everything there was to read, he sat thoughtfully for a moment, then put the book aside and went to look for his host. He found Kurotori on the back porch, looking out on the garden.

"Oh, hello," he said. "Tell me, do you think these paths are going to be wide enough? I'm expecting delivery of my fountain tomorrow, and I'm worried it's going to scar the grass when they move it into place."

"I think, if it comes to that, I can repair any damage done to the turf once your fountain is installed," said Arima. "May I use your library?"

"Of course," said Kurotori. He wasn't even looking at Arima, but simply staring out at the garden. "Is it too late to install some lanterns, I wonder? If I were to host a garden party, I'd want the garden to show well in darkness as well as in daylight. Are there flowers that bloom after dark?"

"A few," said Arima. "I'll provide you with a list, if you like."

"That would be very useful," said Kurotori. "You're always such a help. Hm, I really do think lanterns would be the best idea. I should start sketching designs. They'll have to be custom-made, of course..."

"I'll leave you to it," said Arima, and walked away. Kurotori did not acknowledge his departure.

The library, like every room in Black Swan Manor, was a lovely room, but it did not seem to get a lot of use. There was no dust, of course - the staff was too well-trained for that - but Arima did not get the sense that anything in that room had been moved any time in the last few months, perhaps even years. It took him a moment to realize that the sense of abandonment came from the fact that this was the only room in the manor Arima had been in besides his own that did not smell of Kurotori's cloying jasmine cologne. Either the young lord kept all the books that interested him in his own rooms, or his interest in the arts didn't extend to literature.

Still, the library had what Arima was looking for: an old leather-bound copy of _The Life of Pearlite_. He'd been certain that any household that belonged to a worshiper of Pearlite would have a copy stashed somewhere. Arima carried it to a chair next to the window and began skimming through it. The book had been written by Pearlite's first high priestess, a young woman named Akemi, who had been a servant in his household before he'd become a god, and who had become his first worshiper after he'd ascended. According to popular knowledge, she'd been allowed to follow him to the Heavenly City after her death, where she still served as chief of his attendants. Her writing reflected her closeness to him. Reading the book was a bit like reading a letter written by a proud mother or older sister. She clearly cared deeply about him, and just as clearly knew his faults as well as his good points and wasn't afraid to acknowledge them. Arima felt a bit guilty paying so much attention to a god besides the one who had claimed him, but the book _did_ say that the two of them were good friends and often worked together, so perhaps it was all right.

And it did make for absorbing reading. Arima gathered that Pearlite had lived an interesting life. He'd been born the sort of child who made people stop in the streets to say "What a beautiful baby!", and he'd grown into such a radiant young man that people came from miles around just to get a look at him, and even the rich and powerful had fought for his hand in marriage. He'd also grown up to be vain, self-centered, isolated, paranoid, and completely miserable. He'd only found real happiness after he'd become a god and been married to Sulfur and Vesta, the gods of wealth and love. It was because of their patience and care that he'd come into his full power as the god of spring and new beginnings, making him one of the most powerful and beloved gods in the pantheon.

Arima closed the book and set it aside. Then he simply sat for a while, putting his thoughts in order. The story had been interesting, but it had not done anything to settle his mind. If anything, he felt more uneasy after reading it than he had before.

 _It's very pleasant here,_ he thought, _but something is wrong here, too, only I can't quite get a fix on what it is. Aurite, please show me what is out of order here, so I can decide what to do about it._

For the first time since he'd set foot on the property, Arima felt the faintest hint of a presence brush against his mind, and with it came a single word: _Wait._

Arima heaved a sigh of relief. He had not been abandoned, and he had not been dreaming. Aurite was still looking after him.

 _All right, then. I'll wait a little longer,_ he decided.

With that comforting thought in mind, he took himself off to bed.

He was awakened the next morning, not by the maid, but by Kurotori himself. Arima, in his groggy state of mind, couldn't decide whether he was more unsettled by the fact that Kurotori had ventured into his room, or by the fact that he'd actually gotten up early.

"Wake up!" Kurotori was saying. "You must come see! I can't wait another minute - it's simply too wonderful. I just _have_ to show someone."

"I'm awake," said Arima, rolling over to face him. "Just let me get dressed, all right?"

"I'll meet you in the garden," said Kurotori, and went dancing out of the room.

 _Well, I suppose it's nice to see a happy face first thing in the morning,_ Arima thought.

He rolled out of bed and quickly pulled on his work clothes, assuming that anything in the garden that had Kurotori so delighted was going to mean more work for the gardener. Once he was properly attired, he ventured out into the garden.

He didn't even make it all the way down the path before he saw the source of Kurotori's excitement. The fountain had arrived, and the workmen were already hard at work installing it in its place. Arima was impressed in spite of himself. A decorative fountain like this one required magic to make the water spray into the air, and that cost considerable amounts of money. Kurotori had good reason to be proud of this..

"Arima! There you are," said Kurotori, rushing over to seize him by the arm. "Just look at it! Isn't it magnificent? It cost a king's ransom, but it was worth it! Have you ever seen anything like it in your life?"

No, Arima thought, he hadn't. It was a large fountain, perfectly round at the base, with three tiers rising above it. The lowest level where the water collected was easily as wide as Arima's old bedroom. The fountain itself was made entirely of pure white marble, glistening in the early morning sunlight like diamonds, and each of the three upper tiers had been elaborately carved with leaves and flowers.

It was the lowest level, though, that caught and held Arima's attention. The low wall that surrounded the basin had three statues sitting on it, representing the figures of Pearlite, Sulfur, and Vesta. The three of them were extravagant works of art in their own light. The figure of Sulfur had his clothing overlaid in gold leaf, and his eyes were two dark topazes. A heavy necklace hung around his neck, bracelets around his wrists, a belt of gold links at his waist, and anklets showed beneath the hem of his robe, all of them studded with real jewels. More jewels and heaps of gold were piled at his sides and beneath his feet. Vesta's garments had been cunningly fashioned of pink marble, joined so cleverly to the white marble that made up his body that it was nearly impossible to see the seams. He lounged seductively on his side of the fountain, one hand raised in a beckoning gesture, smiling as if inviting any passers-by to come and get to know him better. Several lanterns with candles in them had been hung at various heights around him, hearkening to the fires that were sacred to him. Their light made his jeweled eyes glitter in a way that was almost lifelike. Most brilliant of all, of course, was the statue of Pearlite. He had been lovingly crafted of pink marble and pink quartz, and the alabaster trim of his lovely robes had been carved into lace so fine it could hardly be told from the real thing. He, too, was draped in a small fortune of real jewelry, and the carved flowers arrayed around him were so detailed that even Arima might have been fooled.

"It is beautiful," said Arima slowly.

 _It is, but there's something wrong about it._ Without a doubt, there was something wrong. Looking at it somehow made Arima feel profoundly disoriented, as if he'd opened his front door and found the earth where the sky should have been, and the sky dropping away below him. He just couldn't quite put his finger on what was wrong. The design was a familiar one. People often depicted Pearlite, Vesta, and Sulfur together in a circle, representing the eternal cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth. There shouldn't have been anything unsettling about that, but...

"I _knew_ you'd like it," said Kurotori delightedly. "I can't wait to see it in action. It's going to be so wonderful when this garden is complete and I can start inviting guests to see it. Everyone is going to be so _envious_. I'm going to be the talk of the town. Why, I wouldn't be surprised if the king himself were to come out to see it, once word gets out. Between the work you're doing with the planting, and this fountain as my centerpiece..." He ran a hand over the Pearlite statue's flowing stone hair. "Just look at this craftsmanship. The jewels in his eyes... I could almost believe he's looking at me now."

The eyes. Yes, that was what was wrong. The Pearlite statue in particular was arranged in just such a way that it was the first thing a visitor would see when they embarked on this path through the garden. As soon as you came around the corner, you'd find him staring straight at you.

And that was very wrong. In every iteration of the "three gods" design Arima had ever seen, the three of them had been arranged so that their backs were to the viewer, generally with their palms touching or hands clasped. After all, they were married to each other, and by all accounts passionately in love. It was only natural that they should be focused on each other. In this arrangement, they seemed to have no interest in each other. They were all seated several feet apart, where they couldn't even touch if they wanted to, and they were all facing away from each other, toward the viewer.

 _Now, why would someone design a statue that way, I wonder?_

Kurotori was still prattling away.

"How much longer do you think the planting will take?" he asked. "I'm so excited to start inviting people to see them. Do you think you might possibly have it all finished by the end of the week? I'd like to at least start sending out invitations..."

"To see your garden," said Arima mildly, "in honor of Pearlite. That's what you said, isn't it?"

"Well, of course." For the first time, there was a note of impatience in Kurotori's voice. "Haven't you been paying attention at all?"

 _More than you think,_ thought Arima wryly. Aloud, he said, "Of course. What a foolish question. What else could a statue like this represent? But I have to wonder if this is really what Pearlite wants you to do. Would this really be pleasing to him?"

"Of course it will be," said Kurotori. Now he really did sound offended. "I am following his example perfectly. Haven't you been looking around you? I wear only the finest clothes, I keep myself in perfect condition, I study art and dancing, I have a beautiful home and beautiful gardens. My only goal in life is to achieve perfect beauty, just as he did, and to enjoy the fruits of that beauty." His expression turned slightly dreamy. "How wonderful it must have been for him, to have everyone's admiration. They say people came from as far away as the Southern Isles and the Lost Desert just to see his face, and all the gods above and below were vying for his hand..."

"They also say he was completely miserable while all that was going on," said Arima.

Kurotori gave him a blank look.

"But that can't really be possible," he said. "It's just part of the story, that's all. No one could really be unhappy about everyone admiring them. It just doesn't make sense."

"No," said Arima slowly. "I suppose it doesn't."

He was thinking very hard. A lot of things were beginning to come clear to him that had not made sense before. He had wondered, somewhere in the back of his mind, why a wealthy lord like Kurotori had been willing to be so kind to a humble gardener, giving him lavish rooms and servants to wait on him, and even allowing him to dine at the same table as his master. Arima had let himself think it was because Kurotori was a kind and generous man. Now he was seeing him in a different light. It hadn't been generosity that had driven him, but simple selfishness. Kurotori was obsessed with having people admire him, and was apparently so desperate that anyone would do, even some stranger he'd literally pulled off the street. He only cared about Arima so long as Arima was willing to listen to him chatter about himself, and could provide him with service that he hoped would make people admire him.

"I'm glad you see it my way," said Kurotori, all smiles once again. "So, about those flowers. Please tell me you can at least have the borders filled in by the end of the day?"

"No," said Arima, "I don't think so. Lord Kurotori, thank you very much for your hospitality, but I think it's time for me to move on."

Kurotori's face fell. "What? But why?"

"I did tell you at the beginning that I have another job waiting for me," said Arima gently. "I only promised you a few days, and I think I've done my part. Now it's time for you to do yours."

"I was hoping I could convince you to stay," said Kurotori, pouting.

"I hate to disappoint you," said Arima, "but I am sworn to Aurite, and he wouldn't forgive me if I broke my promise, and I did promise to go to the city no matter what it takes. Now, I believe we did agree on payment...?"

Kurotori was obviously not happy with this arrangement, but Arima was adamant. He was going - no, not tomorrow, not later today, _now_ \- and neither begging nor bribery would move him. In the end, Kurotori was forced to relent, and he gave Arima a good-sized bag of bread, cheese, smoked meat, dried fruits, and other things that would be of use to him on the road.

"If you change your mind," said Kurotori, as he walked Arima to the gates, "or if you get to the city and find your job is no longer available, come back. There will be a place waiting for you here."

"I'll keep it in mind," Arima promised, but in his heart he knew he would not come back. Kurotori wasn't the kind of master he could willingly serve. "Goodbye, Lord Kurotori. I hope your god blesses you, and that you find happiness someday as he did."

With that, he made a final respectful bow, turned on his heel, and walked away from Black Swan Manor. The scent of sweet flowers followed him, but it no longer tempted him as it had before. He might miss his garden when he became a priest, but there were other things that mattered more to him.

"That was a kind thing to say," a voice at his side remarked. "I'm beginning to see what Aurite sees in you."

Arima jumped. Strolling along beside him was a young man who had not been there before. He was dressed in something pink and silky that fluttered and flowed around him like mist, and he wore jeweled sandals on his feet. Delicate strands of pink pearls wound around his arms and through his hair in a way that seemed as natural as the twining of vines around a lattice. He had a perfect strawberries-and-cream complexion, and his body was both graceful and muscular in a way that made Kurotori's dancer's build look weedy and malnourished by comparison. A gentle rose-gold light played over him, as if where he stood, it was sunrise instead of mid-morning. Arima stared at him for a moment before pulling himself together.

"My lord," he said respectfully. "Your statue doesn't do you justice."

Pearlite laughed. "Oh, I think I like you. Yes, Aurite made a good choice when he selected you as his new priest." His expression sobered. "You're right about poor Kurotori, though. He really hasn't got a clue. I was only too happy to let Aurite borrow him from me for a while."

"Borrow...?" Arima repeated. Then, with dawning understanding, "So this was a test?"

Pearlite nodded. "The first of several, I hope you know. But yes, he wanted to be sure your heart was truly in the job. It's a hard thing, to be a priest. You have to be willing to give up everything in the service of your god. Not everyone is cut out for it."

"So if I had chosen to stay...?" Arima asked.

"Then you wouldn't have been a priest, would you?" said Pearlite lightly. "I don't think Aurite would have been very happy. He is not always forgiving towards people who break their promises, so I suppose it's a good thing you didn't." He laughed suddenly. "Then again, it might not have been all bad. My darling husband tells me that poor Kurotori was a little bit in love with you, or thought he was. You were too good at paying attention to him. That's a useful quality in a priest, but not somewhat perilous in a gardener. If you had hung around long enough, I'm sure he'd have convinced himself you were co-starring with him in some star-crossed lovers drama, and would have tried to marry you. That would have been punishment enough, yes?"

Arima cringed. "Too right."

"I'm almost sorry you didn't hang around longer. It would have been an amusing farce," said Pearlite. "But now you are gone, and Kurotori will begin to miss you, and perhaps begin to realize that other people are worthwhile for their own sake, and not just for what they can do for him. That will be good for him in the long run. Don't worry too much about leaving him behind. If he's a good boy and learns his lessons, Vesta and I will see to it that he won't be alone forever."

"I'm glad," said Arima sincerely. He might not have wanted to serve Kurotori, and certainly didn't care to marry him, but he didn't wish the man to suffer, either.

"I'll look forward to seeing what you do with the rest of your trip," said Pearlite. "I must tell Aurite what I think of his new priest. Feel free to make me an offering the next time you pass a shrine. At the moment, I have a particular fancy for raspberry cake. You can do that, can't you? Of course you can. Well, I must be going now. Enjoy your trip!"

And then he was gone, vanishing in a swirl of warm wind and flower petals. There wasn't even a footprint in the dusty road to mark where he had been.

 _Well,_ he thought, _if I really am mad, and hallucinating gods, my imagination certainly doesn't lack for variety._

He did not think he was hallucinating, though. He could still smell the scent of flowers where no flowers had been. Still, he thought, it was interesting how differently he reacted to seeing Pearlite. He wasn't feeling overawed the way he had when he'd first met Aurite. Maybe it was because Pearlite was one of the younger gods, and had once been human, that made him seem more approachable. Maybe Arima was just less invested in the idea of beauty as an all-consuming ideal. Maybe he was just getting used to the idea of gods getting involved in his life.

 _Or maybe it's because I'm already devoted to Aurite._

That idea felt right. There was nothing in the world he wanted more, now, than to make Aurite happy. He might not have known that for certain if he hadn't made his detour to the Black Swan Manor, but now he could be sure that there was no temptation on earth that could sway him from his chosen course. That was a reassuring thing to know. It made the world feel more... orderly.

Smiling at the thought, Arima picked up his pace, more eager than ever to get to the city.

Although, he thought, when he got to the next town, he might have to look into the availability of raspberry cake.


	3. The Boy in the Blanket

It was not a good day to be outside.

Arima slogged grimly forward, his head held resolutely high, his boots soaked with rainwater. It was not a good day to be on the road, to be pelted with rain and sleet, to feel his clothes being slowly laden down with mud, to feel the chill wind biting his face. His wet shoes were rubbing a blister onto one heel, and he limped a little as he continued his weary trudge. It had been days since his last sight of human habitation, and he was aching for the feel of a warm fire and the sound of a friendly voice. The food that Kurotori had given him had nearly run out, and he had spent most of the last few days hungry as he tried to conserve his resources. It had been raining pretty steadily for the last two days, too, and he'd slept badly, contriving what shelter he could beneath bushes and trees. In short, he was cold, wet, aching, and about as miserable as he'd ever been. He'd thought he knew what hard work was like when he'd been laboring on the family homestead, but nothing in what he was increasingly realizing had been a very sheltered life had ever compared to this.

 _I'm beginning to wonder if I'm going to make it to the city alive._

He tried to squelch that thought. Aurite had promised him that nothing would come his way that he couldn't cope with. He had to believe that, or he would lose heart, stop walking, and lie down somewhere to wait for the cold to finish him off. He continued repeating that mantra as he walked - _Aurite will help me. Aurite will take care of me._ \- but it was slender comfort in his wretched surroundings.

A low snarl drew his attention. A few yards up the road from him stood a ragged yellow dog, all skin and bones. It was clearly feral, clearly starving, and clearly considering returning to its wolfish roots and dining on a weary and apparently defenseless traveler. Arima reached slowly for his belt.

"Nice dog," he said softly. "Good dog. Go away, doggy, and leave me alone..."

The dog was not interested in being soothed. It took a few stiff-legged paces towards him, hackles raised, teeth bared. Arima carefully undid his lash.

"I'm warning you," he said. "This is going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me."

The dog didn't seem to like the way he was moving. Its growl rose to a crescendo, and it lunged.

Quick as a flash, Arima whipped the lash at it, and it fell back whimpering. Its expression, when it looked up at him, was almost betrayed, as if it couldn't believe its prey had the nerve to fight back.

"Go on, shoo!" Arima shouted. He flicked the lash again, and it whipped through the air with a whistling sound. The dog decided it didn't want to eat him as much as all that and faded into the trees.

"Good choice," said Arima, but he didn't put down the lash.

As far as weapons went, the lash wasn't very impressive to look at. Seeing it wouldn't strike fear into the hearts of men the way a sword or an axe might. That was fine by Arima. He didn't want to make people think he was looking for a fight; he just wanted to make sure he was ready for one if it happened. His weapon of choice was a thin, strong length of chain. Attached to either end were lead weights encased in hardened steel. Depending on how he used it, he could either whip the chain around someone's wrist or ankle, pulling them off balance and possibly disarming them, or else he could strike at them with the heavy weighted ends. If he put enough force behind the blows, he could break bones that way. Once, when he'd been on the way to the next town with one of his sisters, they'd been menaced by a man with a knife. Arima had shattered his kneecap and left him by the side of the road. If the man had actually managed to use that knife against Arima's sister, he probably would have dealt him a broken skull instead. It was a handy weapon, that lash, and he took it out into the back yard at least once a week to practice with it. He could line up a row of pine cones with an inch of space between them and pick off every other one without touching its neighbors.

 _Of course, in this muck, a whole troop of bandits could sneak up on me and pin my arms before I ever knew they were there,_ he thought grimly, peering out into the rain. He'd been hearing reports of banditry as he traveled, before he'd run out of people to hear anything from, and he was almost a little surprised that he hadn't run into any by now. He paused at the top of a small rise in the road, shaded his eyes, and tried to peer into the gathering gloom. The sun was going down behind its thick screen of clouds, and the day was going from gray to black with dismaying speed.

 _Aurite, if you still favor me, please find me a dry place to sleep tonight. A hay barn or even a cave will do, so long as it's dry..._

As if in answer, the rains parted for just a moment, and Arima caught a glimpse of light. He held his breath, wondering if he'd really seen it, or if it were only a figment of his imagination. But no, now that he was looking for it, he could see a faint yellow glimmer, as of candlelight. It might be only foxfire, or some wandering demon looking to lure travelers off the trail. It might even be the campfire of some wandering hunter or traveler, if they had some way to shelter it from the rain. Or... it might be a house.

Arima picked up his pace, and watched with great satisfaction as the light grew and spread, revealing itself to be the glow of a distant but rapidly nearing town. It was still a good distance away, but the mere thought that if he kept going, Arima might actually be able to find some hot food and a place to sleep spurred him on. Within the hour, he was carefully making his way past the first few houses. He slowed his pace, considering his surroundings. He needed a place to stay, and that meant he needed a place where he could offer service in exchange for lodging. He wasn't going to be doing much farm work in the rain and the dark. Perhaps he could find an inn or pub that would let him help with the dishes.

He was still weighing his options when he heard a female voice saying, "Can I help you, good sir?"

"Ah," said Arima, jolted out of his thoughts. He realized that he'd been standing outside a shop for at least five minutes, staring at the window displays without really seeing them, and the proprietress had come out to see what he was looking at. "No, sorry, that's quite all right. I was just thinking about something."

"I see," she said. "Well, perhaps you had better think about it inside, before you catch your death in this rain. The weather's been beastly today, hasn't it?"

With this and other such friendly chatter, she herded him into the shop. He had to admit, it was much warmer in there, not to mention blessedly dry. From this side of the window, he could now see that he was standing inside a dry goods store, looking at rows and rows of tools, bits of string, pieces of crockery, bolts of cloth, and other workaday odds and ends. The woman who had greeted him at the door took her place on a stool behind the counter and watched him intently.

"Thank you for letting me come inside," he said.

"You're welcome," she said, smiling good-humoredly at him. "I tend to encourage people to come inside my store. Every once in a while, they buy something." Her dancing eyes invited him to share in the joke, and he laughed obligingly.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you," he said, "but I haven't got any money."

"Bet that makes it a bit hard to get by," she observed. She eyed him thoughtfully. "You don't look like a beggar, though. What's your business?"

"I'm..." He paused for a split second, trying to decide what he could tell her that would be truthful but still not get him into trouble. He didn't dare try the gardener story after what had happened last time. "I'm a devotee of the god Aurite. I'm making a pilgrimage to his temple in the City of Seven Pillars."

"I see," she said, appraising him with new interest. "Well, pleased to meet you. I'm Mrs. Komi. You're a holy man, then?"

He considered that question carefully.

"I don't consider myself particularly holy," he said at length, "but the gods are, and sometimes they choose to speak to me."

The woman nodded, as if that were the answer she had been hoping for.

"Well, we don't get many of your kind passing through here, but I always think it's bad luck not to be friendly to the friends of the gods. You never know when you might have a need for their help, eh?"

Arima nodded agreeably. "You've certainly answered my prayers, which were to get out of this miserable cold and damp."

"Well, there's a way you can pay me back," she said, expression going serious. "Do you think you could speak to my son?"

"On what topic?" he asked guardedly.

"He's not been himself lately," said the woman. "He was attacked by thugs a few weeks back. They robbed him and hurt him badly. His body has recovered, but his mind..." She trailed off and shrugged. Catching Arima's expression, she added, "It isn't that he's feeble-minded or anything like that. His brains are fine. It's just that he's lost his nerve somehow. All he does is sit in his room all day, bundled up in his blankets. He's stopped speaking to any of his friends. He barely eats. I don't know what to do with him. I've tried being patient with him. I've tried cajoling and bribing and scolding and threatening, and I honestly can't think what else to do. I'm hoping that the gods will help where I can't."

"I see," said Arima slowly. "Well, I can't promise anything, but I'll at least speak to him."

"Thank you," the woman replied. "And listen - if you need a place to stay tonight, you're welcome to bunk in the attic. It'll be a bit dusty, but it's warm and dry, and I'll loan you a blanket and give you a bit of soup."

"That's more than generous," he answered. "Where can I find your son?"

"Up there," she said, pointing at a flight of wooden steps half-hidden by a curtain. "His name is Shou - Shou Komi."

Arima started up the stairs. At the top, there was a narrow hallway lined with doors. One or two were very narrow, and he guessed these were storage closets. One was slightly ajar, and he could see what was obviously a bedroom through it. The last door was shut tightly, but when he tried the latch, it opened smoothly inward. The room beyond it was dark.

"Hello?" he called uncertainly.

There was a small squeak from somewhere inside the room, and Arima caught a flicker of movement as someone ducked under a heap of blankets. The movement was so much like a disturbed snail ducking into its shell that he recoiled, but quickly got himself under control. This, he reminded himself, was nothing but a frightened boy who needed a little moral support. Arima was good at moral support. He could do this. He took a cautious step inside.

"It's all right," he said. "Your mother sent me. You're Shou, right?"

"Go away," said the boy, his voice muffled by blankets.

"It's not good for you to sit in the dark like this. Let me put some lights on," he said.

He picked his way through the litter on the floor. Room cleaning was apparently not high on this boy's list of things to do, and the floor was strewn with debris. Used clothing had been tossed in heaps like snow drifts. The cores of apples and pears mingled with bits of chicken bones and the occasional used dish, adding a rank aroma to the air. Books, apparently abandoned in mid-story, were scattered across the room, some open with their spines upwards, their pages bent and stained from their contact with the filthy floor. Most of the flat surfaces had dust on them. In the midst of this squalor, a heap of blankets was pressed against the far corner of the room, twitching a little as its occupant turned to follow Arima's progress. Arima managed to reach the far side of the room without mishap and plotted his next move. There was a fireplace against one wall, but the fire had gone out. Arima piled up a few sticks from the basket resting next to it, got them burning, and used a spill from it to light a lamp.

"There. That's better," he said, although he wasn't certain that was true. The addition of light to the room only made its clutter look even more dismal. He looked around at the mess. "We should do something about all this rubbish. This really won't do at all."

"I like it this way," said the bundle of blankets. "Leave me alone."

"No," said Arima. His natural love of cleanliness and order was asserting itself. No one should be allowed to live like this. It couldn't possibly be good for anyone. He began gathering up the discarded clothing, folded it neatly, and put it back in the wardrobe. It wouldn't be clean, but at least it would be off the floor. He stacked the books and other articles back on the shelves, then used the fireplace brush to sweep up the rest of the rubbish. Throughout this performance, the boy in the blankets didn't speak, but he did watch with wide-eyed fascination. Gradually, his eyes were followed by a nose, then a mouth and a chin, and then a pair of hands that pushed the blankets down enough that his shoulders could make an appearance. Arima carefully avoided looking directly at him, but he smiled a little in satisfaction as he swept the last of the garbage into the now-roaring fire.

"Who in the name of Sulfur's vaults are you, anyway?" the boy demanded at last.

"My name is Arima. I'm a wandering priest. Your mother asked me to try to help you," he replied.

"By cleaning my room?"

"She didn't ask me to do that, but it needed doing."

The boy shook his head. "I didn't think priests cleaned rooms."

"Of course they do," said Arima. "How else do you think they keep their rooms clean? Have you ever heard of a priest with servants?"

"I guess not." The bundle of blankets, which had been lying in a horizontal position up until then, reoriented itself so that it was sitting up. Arima appreciated that. It was a far more human and less snail-like posture.

"So. You _are_ Shou, aren't you?" Arima persisted.

The boy looked sullen. "What difference does it make? Why do you care?"

"Any number of reasons," said Arima. "Because you seem to need help. Because it's a priest's job to do the work of the gods on earth. Because your mother asked me to, and she seems like a kind woman."

"Well, I don't need any help. I don't need anybody," said Shou. He made to withdraw back into his cocoon. "Now, go away."

Arima did not go away. He sat down against the wall next to the fireplace and regarded the cocoon thoughtfully.

"I'm not sure I want to go away," he said. "I hear there are bandits out there. Perhaps I'm safer in here with you."

"There are bandits," said Shou. "And robbers. Too many robbers. You're right - it's not safe out there."

"And that's why you're staying in here," Arima concluded. "Because you want to be safe."

"Yeah," said Shou. "Not just from robbers, though. People. You can't trust them. You think they've got your best interests at heart, and then..." He made a stabbing motion with his hand.

"I see," said Arima. "But surely all people aren't bad. Don't you have any friends?"

"No, and I don't _want_ any," Shou snapped. "I used to have friends, and look where that got me! As soon as those robbers attacked, what do you think my so-called friends did? Do you think they helped me? No, they took off running like a bunch of frightened rabbits. I don't need friends like that. I don't want any friends at all, if that's how they're going to be."

"So you intend to stay in here for the rest of your life?" Arima asked. "I'm not sure that's an improvement. Even if you aren't relying on your friends anymore, you'll be relying on your family."

"I'm not going to stay here," said Shou. "I wrote a letter to my uncle. He has lands south of here, with a lot of forest on them. I asked him to let me be his gamekeeper. I'm going to move into a house into the middle of the woods and never see anyone else ever again."

"And then you'll be safe," said Arima thoughtfully.

Shou shrugged. "Sure there are wolves and wild cats and demons out there, but at least they're honest about what they are. You know where you stand with them. They'll never stab me in the back like humans would."

"I don't think all humans are like that," said Arima. "I've met a lot of people on my journey. Did you know I was on a journey? I set out from my family's house with no money or supplies, and I've been relying solely on the generosity of other people to get this far. I'm here now because your mother took pity on me. I don't think you should let your fear of what other people _might_ do to you make you reject all people everywhere."

"It's different for you," said Shou. "You're a priest. The gods will take care of you."

"They'd look after you too, perhaps," said Arima. "They do take care of other people besides priests, you know."

Shou shook his head. "Not me."

"Well, then," said Arima, "why don't we make a wager? You want to go south, and so do I. Why don't we travel together?"

"Nuh-uh!" Shou ducked back inside his blanket. "You just want to rob me. You'll leave me dead by the side of the road the minute I turn my back on you."

"Now, why would I do that? I'm a priest of the god of law and order."

Shou peered out at him suspiciously. "You could just be _saying_ that to get me to trust you."

"I could be," said Arima. "But do robbers usually clean their victims' rooms before they beat and rob them?"

Shou seemed to turn this over in his mind for a while.

"No," he said. "I guess not."

"And if I were inclined to do such a thing," Arima continued, "wouldn't it be easier for me to attack you now, while we're alone, and help myself to your belongings, than to try to convince you to follow me on the road and do it out there in broad daylight where there's a chance of being seen?"

Shou seemed to consider that idea.

"All right," he said. "Maybe you're not a robber. But I still bet you'd abandon me at the first sign of trouble."

"If I do," Arima pointed out, "you'd be no worse off than if I didn't go with you at all, would you?"

Shou admitted that this was the case.

"Fine," he said. "Tomorrow. Unless I change my mind." He withdrew back into his bundle of blankets for a second or two, then abruptly popped his head out again. "But don't think this makes us friends!"

"I wouldn't dream of it," said Arima mildly, and left the room.

He found Shou's mother downstairs locking the shop up for the day.

"Not worth burning the lamp oil when there are no customers," she remarked. "Did you talk to my boy?"

"I did," said Arima. "I'm not sure how much good it did. He says he wants to go visit an uncle who lives in the south."

"That's right," said Mrs. Komi, grimacing a bit. "That's been his favorite threat ever since he was small. Every time something isn't going his way, he threatens to run away to his uncle's and go live in the woods."

"I'm not certain that would be the best thing for him, to tell the truth, but it would seem his uncle's place is in the same direction I'm going," said Arima. "I offered to walk with him a ways. Perhaps getting out in the fresh air and sunlight and interacting with people again will give him some perspective."

"It would probably do him a lot more good than hiding in his room all day," Mrs. Komi admitted. "And I'll feel he's safe enough if he's traveling with a priest. It'll be a sad day when you can't trust a priest of Aurite to keep his word... and I don't think there are many people crazy enough to say they're a priest of Aurite when they aren't."

"I'll keep a close eye on him," Arima promised. "It might be nice to have a little company on the road."

Mrs. Komi nodded. "He's a good boy, when he isn't in one of his dark moods. Maybe if he does make it all the way to his uncle's place, a few days of hard work in the woods will teach him a lesson."

Arima agreed that this was probably so. Somehow, he had a feeling that a stay of isolation in a shack in the woods with the wind and wolves howling outside would be very different from isolation a comfortable room with a devoted mother bringing up meals three times a day.

Mrs. Komi was as good as her word where the food and lodgings were concerned. She gave him a large bowl of soup and a chunk of bread to sop it up with, and got him situated in the attic. It was, as she'd said, dusty and bare, but the chimney passing through the middle of it provided ample warmth, and after sleeping on wet ground for days, even the wooden floor felt marvelous. Arima stretched out on the floor and bundled himself up in the blanket his hostess had provided, using his nearly empty pack as a pillow.

But the act of wrapping himself up made him think about the task he had set for himself. How was he supposed to look after this bitter, suspicious boy on his own? He was barely looking after himself. He was, after all, no more than a year or two older than Shou himself. The journey this far had been grueling, and he still had no clear idea of how much further he had to go. For that matter, he had no idea how much further he _could_ go. He was getting very tired of being dirty, cold, wet, sore, and hungry. Did he really have the endurance to keep this up for another day? For three days? For a week? More? What about bandits and robbers? He had his knife and his lash, but what good were they against highwaymen with crossbows? There were wild animals out there, too, and demons. He'd met lesser demons before - odd little creatures shaped like brightly colored animals but with the minds and voices of men, who made small bargains and offered small temptations. Those were easy enough to get rid of, but what if he met a greater demon? Surely it would be in their best interests to try to stop him from ever getting to the city and taking up the mantle of high priest. It would be a major blow to the chief of the gods if he had no priest to do his work. The greater demons were almost as powerful as gods themselves. His puny weapons would hardly be much good if he met one of those.

 _If I even am going to be a priest._ He had not actually seen Aurite face-to-face since that moment in the garden, and right now, in the dark, with the sound of rain drumming on the roof, it was harder than ever to believe such a thing could have actually happened. Maybe all the trouble he'd been having lately was a sign of Aurite's displeasure - anger, perhaps, at the way Arima had dallied at Black Swan Manor instead of going directly towards his goal. Maybe he would have made it there by now if he hadn't succumbed to temptation. He hadn't seen any sign at all that Aurite was working in his favor - nothing, at least, that couldn't be chalked up to luck. All right, there had been that odd conversation with Pearlite, but that was even harder to believe, somehow, than visions of Aurite. It was very difficult for a human mind to comprehend that something so perfect actually existed outside an artist's wildest fantasies.

 _And my family is still out there._ Even as far as the last town he'd passed through, he'd heard rumors that they were still looking for him. Apparently a runaway young man who'd lost his mind and decided he was the chosen one of the gods was the sort of gossip that spread quickly. If anyone recognized him and captured him, they'd put him somewhere a lot harder to escape than his bedroom. He'd probably never get away from his family again.

 _What a pair we're going to make,_ Arima thought wryly. _A boy who doesn't want to leave his bedroom, and a man who had to escape his by climbing out a window._

And with that thought still going through his head, he dropped into an uneasy dream. In it, his family, dressed like highwaymen and carrying crossbows, crept inexorably closer to hm, ready to shoot him down. He tried to escape, but he was bundled up in blankets so tightly that he could do nothing but squirm. He twisted and thrashed, frantic to escape the gleaming points of the crossbow bolts, until at last...

He rolled over and knocked his head against the wall. The sunlight slanting through the chinks in the walls told him that it was morning, and the bustle going on below him suggested that someone might be cooking breakfast.

Altogether, he thought, it was not the most auspicious start to the day.

* * *

The day did not go as badly as he thought it might.

It started with breakfast in the Komi family kitchen. There, he was introduced to Mr. Komi, who thanked him effusively for trying to help his son. Somewhat to Arima's surprise, Shou had come downstairs as well, and was eating his porridge while giving everyone at the table sidelong looks, as if he expected that at any moment someone would pull a knife on him or try to slip poison into his bowl. Arima endeavored to eat decorously - not an easy thing to do with drippy spoonfuls of porridge - and not let on just how short his rations had been lately. He tried not to look too eager when the kindly Mrs. Komi suggested he might like a second helping.

The weather had improved slightly. That was to say that it was still cold and gray, but the rain had slacked off to an intermittent drizzle, bringing the discomfort level down to merely unpleasant rather than thoroughly wretched. Shou was not a particularly good traveling companion. He walked in sullen silence a few paces behind Arima, watching him the whole time for signs of treachery. Disheartened by this lack of faith, Arima couldn't even muster the energy to try to strike up a conversation, and he walked in dejected silence. At least, he thought hopefully, Mrs. Komi had given her son some money and both of them food. As long as the rain didn't get into his pack too badly, Arima thought, he could look forward to a few half-decent meals before he had to go hungry again.

The two of them walked briskly through the village, Arima keeping his head down and trying not to be noticed, Shou keeping his head down and refusing to answer the friendly calls of his neighbors. They quickly left the village behind, and the road took them first through a few scraps of farmland, and then into a stand of pine forest. Their progress, which had been brisk up until then, slowed as they navigated their way over the rutted paths. The ground was strewn with long fluffy pine needles, which concealed hidden obstacles. Arima had to walk very carefully to avoid stumbling over a buried root or loose stone, and once or twice he had to turn very quickly to catch his traveling companion before he fell.

"Thanks," Shou muttered, after he'd managed to trip over a branch that had fallen across the path.

Arima had to fight not to smile. It was the first kind word Shou had said to him this whole time. Maybe, he thought, the boy was coming around.

They camped by the side of the road that night. Arima, as had become his habit, took out his _Book of the Gods_ to peruse. He had meant to reread the section he always read, but Shou showed signs of interest, so Arima obliged him by reading out some of the more interesting passages: the story of how Aurite had found his golden arrows, how Pearlite had once stopped a war by enchanting a river and making an entire army stop to stare at their magically enhanced reflections, how Sulfur had played a trick on a legendarily greedy king by making him see ordinary pebbles and acorns as precious stones. Once or twice, the boy actually smiled.

 _This might work after all,_ Arima thought, as he drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, Arima woke to a milk-white sky and dew-damp bedroll. He dragged himself to his feet anyway, managed to shake Shou out of his dreams and his blankets, and coax him into hitting the road. They ate breakfast while they walked, mouthfuls of bread and dried fruit washed down with gulps from their waterskins. Despite this unauspicious start, the mood was less strained than it had been the day before. Shou opened up enough to ask Arima a little about where he was going and what he was doing, and Arima gave him a few carefully edited answers. In exchange, Shou told Arima a bit about the City of Seven Pillars. He had actually been there a few times, he said, visiting relatives who lived out that way. He said it was the biggest place he'd ever been to, easily more than ten times the size of the little village he'd grown up in, and surrounded by the seven stone columns that gave the city its name. According to the legend, Shou said, the pillars had been placed there by gods long ago, but history did not record exactly to what purpose. Some people said that they had been the columns of a temple the likes of which the world had never seen before or since. Some said they were the playing pieces of some immense game, one where centuries passed between turns, and that someday one of the gods would pick them up and move them all somewhere else. Some said that the columns had actually _been_ gods, or possibly demons, who had been sealed away for some reason that humanity had forgotten. Everyone said they positively thrummed with power, such that even normal humans could sense it if they got close enough. The City of Seven Pillars was therefore a hotbed of priests, magicians, and bards of every description.

"You'll like this," said Shou, as he hopped his way across the stepping stones of a small creek. "Some people say that the seven pillars are actually the arrows of Aurite, and that's why his first temple is there. They say he shot them into the ground to pin the earth down, so it doesn't float away on the ocean."

"That makes as much sense as any other story," said Arima, but Shou had been right to guess that he'd be pleased. Somehow the thought that the world was held in place by Aurite's own arrows made him feel that the world was that much more secure. He was looking forward to seeing them. Something of his feelings must have shown on his face, because Shou grinned at him. Arima smiled back.

 _This is going to happen. We're actually going to be friends._

It was just after noon that they found the camp. As soon as they saw the smoke, Shou became leery and wanted to detour around the source, suspecting bandit camps and similar awfulness. Arima had been less worried, and had offered to scout ahead. He ventured forth alone while Shou waited nearby, fidgeting. As it turned out, however, Arima was in the right. The smoke came from a camp, all right, but it was only a band of hunters taking a break from stalking rabbits and squirrels. They were only too happy to see a friendly face, and willingly invited Arima and Shou to join in their noonday meal. Arima carried the news back to his companion, and both of them willingly joined their new friends for a lunch of bread and toasted squirrel.

"Which way are you all coming from?" Arima asked them.

One of them gestured over his shoulder. "There's a village a few miles that way called Wildtree. You probably never heard of it."

Arima agreed that he hadn't. He was grateful they didn't ask where he came from, and he didn't volunteer the information. Instead, he introduced his companion and mentioned the village they had just come from.

"I'm on my way to the City of Seven Pillars," Arima explained, "and my friend here has graciously allowed me to accompany him for some distance."

One of the hunters looked Arima over thoughtfully. "City of Seven Pillars, huh? Now, where did I hear someone mentioning that earlier? I'm sure I heard someone talking about it..."

"Wasn't it back at the pub?" one of his companions asked.

"Oh, right! There was that messenger," said the hunter. "Something about a runaway."

"A... runaway?" said Arima uneasily.

"Yeah. Some kid who snuck out of his house and disappeared," the hunter elaborated. "Can you believe it? They say he climbed out of a second story window."

"What was it about?" Arima asked. He had a bad feeling about this, and hoped he was just being paranoid. "I suppose he was eloping with a lover. Or did he steal the silverware?"

"Nothing that ordinary," said the hunter. "Supposedly he went off his head and started thinking he was seeing gods."

"Well, people do see gods," said Arima.

"Yeah, but not this guy. According to his folks, he was already a little soft in the head," said the hunter, "and it sounds like he finally just slipped over the edge entirely. Now, what did they say his name was? Something with an 'A'. Akira? No, that's not it. Wait, I've got it! Arima! Ibushi Arima!"

Arima couldn't help it: he winced. Shou gave him a startled look.

"I don't believe it!" he said.

Now all the hunters were staring. Arima wished he could sink into the ground.

"It isn't what you think," he began.

"I just can't believe it!" Shou said again. He jolted to his feet. "All this time I trusted you, and it turns out you're nothing but a madman! I can't believe I ever listened to you!"

"No, wait, it isn't like that..." Arima began, but it was too late. He reached for Shou's arm, but the boy shrugged him off and rushed off into the forest. Arima shook his head in frustration and scrambled to his feet.

"Come back here!" he shouted, as Shou vanished into the woods. "It's not safe!"

Forgetting the hunters, he raced off into the woods as fast as his tired feet could carry him. Behind him, he could hear a commotion, and he suspected that very shortly the hunters would be grabbing their gear and getting ready to chase after him. Well, he'd worry about that later. Right now, he had to find Shou before he got himself lost in these woods forever. Arima had grown up exploring forests, and knew how to navigate even an unfamiliar one without ending up wandering in circles forever. Shou, on the other hand, was a town-bred boy who, he had gathered by now, had rarely if ever ventured beyond the safety of his neighborhood. He could get himself lost in pretty short order - or, worse yet, injure himself on some hidden obstacle or get himself bitten by a snake.

Unfortunately for Arima, Shou had at least one advantage over him: he hadn't been walking for days on short sleep and short rations, and he had a lot more energy than Arima did. He very quickly disappeared out of sight in the dimly lit forest. Arima pressed on anyway, following the trail of kicked-up pine needles and broken branches, and hoped he was still following his own quarry and not the path of a deer or bear. Keeping his eye on the ground and watching for signs of Shou's passage slowed him down even more, but he knew that if he lost the trail now he would never find it again.

After a few minutes of this, he came upon something he didn't expect: a path. It wasn't much, little more than a deer run, but it was wide enough that a human being could walk along it without getting snagged on anything, and smooth enough that there was little risk of stumbling. Arima studied it for a moment and concluded that this was the way Shou had probably gone. He set off along the trail, watching for any signs that a human had passed this way.

He realized soon enough that something human had passed this way, and it wasn't Shou. The further he went, the more convinced he became that this path had been used regularly by something that wasn't a deer or a bear. There were boot prints on the occasional patches of bare ground, and one of the trees had a crudely carved message in its bark: _Fox wuz heer_.

 _Hunters?_ Arima wondered. _Or something else?_

Wary now, he unhooked his lash and began creeping forward more slowly yet.

His caution was well-justified. After he had gone a short distance, he came to the edge of a small ravine, a place where a river had long ago cut a deep groove into the ground. The edges of the ravine had been softened by time, covered over by moss and partially hidden by brambles, but the path led to a set of crude steps cutting into its side. Arima veered off the path to hide in the bushes along the edge, and from that vantage point he peered down into the cleft.

They were bandits, of course, about a dozen of them, gathered around a small campfire. The wood they fed it must have been dry, because it put out very little smoke. The clothing they wore looked old and worn but well cared-for, and they wore it like they were comfortable in it. After a moment, Arima realized that what they were wearing was actually partial armor, and that it fit as though it were made for them. These, he guessed, had probably once been army men, and that they had either deserted their regiment or had fled to avoid capture when the rest of their unit had been defeated in some past battle. Now they were living a lawless life, and apparently not doing too badly at it. Their tents were in good repair and looked as though they had been there for some time. If there had not been so many dangerous-looking men hanging about, Arima would have said that they looked like a place where he'd have gladly bedded down for the night. As it was, he gave the settlement only the barest glance while he scanned it in search of his friend.

What he saw made his heart drop. They had Shou, trussed up hand and foot, and with a knife pointed at his throat. Arima was too far off to hear what was being said, but he guessed that the bandits were probably questioning him. He doubted Shou would have much to tell them, and if they got tired of listening to what he had to say, he didn't expect that they would simply untie him, pat him on the head, and tell him to run along. Arima took a breath.

 _I have to get him out of there,_ he thought. But what could he do? He was an able enough fighter, but not against a dozen men - maybe even more than a dozen, if there were others inside those tents that he couldn't see. He could run back and try to enlist the help of the hunters, but even if he could follow his tracks back to where he'd started, there wasn't enough time. That was even supposing the hunters would listen to him, which wasn't likely, since they were pretty well convinced that he was a runaway madman. He had to do this on his own. Somehow.

 _And probably we'll both end up dead._

Common sense asserted itself: committing suicide by bandit would do no one any good. He wasn't strong enough to save the boy on his own, and there was no help coming. The sensible thing to do would be to back away before anyone saw him, report what he'd seen, and send someone capable to avenge poor Shou's inevitable death. He had no other choice.

 _I can't break that boy's trust._

He gritted his teeth. Stupid as it was, he couldn't bring himself to cast aside such hard-earned faith. Shou was surely thinking even now that Arima had abandoned him, or worse yet, doubting they had ever been friends at all. Arima was not going to let that happen. If there was no other option, then he would die bravely knowing that the gods would reward his sacrifice. At least if they both died today, he could go down knowing he'd have a friend waiting for him in the underworld.

 _At least I can take a few of these men with me when I go._

He scanned the side of the ravine and found a good-sized rock. He hefted it in his free hand, testing its weight. Then he took careful aim and lobbed it at the bandits' cooking pot. It struck with a satisfying _clonk_.

Immediately, all heads whipped around to see what had caused the ruckus. Arima stood up straight and waved.

"Hello down there!" he called cheerfully. "Have you heard the good news of our master Lord Aurite?"

The response was instantaneous. Arima flung himself at the ground just in time to avoid a volley of arrows. He rolled over a few times, putting just a little more distance between himself and his attackers. The sounds coming from the camp below told him that most if not all of the bandits were on their way up the stairs coming after him. Knowing that there was no point in trying to get away, he instead crept back to the edge of the ravine and peered down. None of them had stayed behind to guard their captive. Apparently the bandits felt that a bound captive was less important than catching a strange and possibly insane intruder. Good. Maybe there was a slim chance that Shou could escape by the time the bandits were finished taking care of their new target.

He made it back to his feet just in time to see a wall of bandits rushing closer to him. He held up his lash and calmly waited for them.

"Who in the name of Vesta's stained sheets are you?" one of them demanded.

"Ah, ah," Arima chided gently. "That's no way to speak to a holy man."

"You're no holy man," one of the bandits snarled. Turning to his friends, he said, "It's that lunatic - the boy who thinks he speaks to gods."

"He must be off his rocker, all right," one of the others agreed. "Maybe if we turn him in to his family, they'll give us a reward!"

"And chance him telling everyone where we are?" another replied. "Don't be a blasted fool!"

"Who'd believe him? He's off his nut!"

"We can't afford to take the chance," said the one who'd spoken first, and who seemed to be the leader. "Kill him now and throw him in the gully."

So that was that, then. Arima watched the men raise their crossbows and tried to prepare himself to meet his end with some sort of dignity.

Then something inside him balked. He was not going to die here - he was going to go to the City of Seven Pillars to see the legendary stones that might or might not be the remains of Aurite's arrows, to see the temple and learn to be a priest, to prove to everyone that he wasn't deluded or crazy. He was going to make Aurite proud of him, to see him smile again.

 _I want to prove it to myself, too._ The thought came to him in a moment of clarity. All this time, he had been assuming that he wasn't going to get out of this alive, but that wasn't really true, was it? Aurite had promised him that nothing would happen that he couldn't take care of. Arima couldn't call himself a proper priest if he wasn't willing to believe that his god couldn't handle a handful of dirty bandits.

 _I'm sorry, Aurite. I'm going to trust you this time. Just show me what to do and I'll do it._

To the bandits, it seemed that he had only closed his eyes and taken a long breath, as if bracing himself for the inevitable. Then he opened his eyes, and all of them took an involuntary step back. Whatever was looking out of his eyes now, it wasn't the same mild-mannered, cheerful man they had been dealing with a moment ago.

"I'm giving you one last chance," he said, his voice low and dangerous. "Release my friend, put down your weapons, go to the nearest town and turn yourselves in."

The lead bandit looked belligerent. "Why should we?"

Their captive looked at them scornfully. "Because I know what you are. You deserted your comrades and betrayed your liege lord. You make your living robbing and killing. You've kidnapped my friend, and you've threatened me. If you don't surrender now, you'll be facing the judgment of Aurite."

"Funny," said the bandit leader, "I don't see him anywhere."

Arima smiled. "Check again." And then he moved.

What was it like? To Arima, it was as if a veil had been torn away, and he was seeing the world clearly for the first time, as if he'd been standing on the deck of a tossing ship and had finally stepped onto solid ground. He seemed to have plenty of time to think, and perfect awareness of where everything around him was. The world was simple and easy to understand. There were a lot of unpleasant-looking men in front of him, but they no longer looked like a threat. They looked small and shabby and rather fragile, as if the next strong wind would just blow them away. He looked scornfully at their weapons. Such flimsy things. Did they really think they could hurt him with those toys?

One of the bandits raised a crossbow and fired at him, but he spun his lash in front of him and deflected the bolt easily. Two more came at him with knives, but they seemed to be moving in slow motion. He disarmed one with a flip of the chain and cracked the other one across the temple with the weighted end before the first man had finished realizing he'd lost his blade. That one made a clumsy attempt to grapple Arima, but he was already moving out of the way, laying about with his chain in one hand and knife in the other. They fell before him like saplings before a hurricane wind. Within seconds, he found himself standing at the center of a circle of dead or unconscious bodies with only the vaguest notion of how they'd gotten there. He stood there for a moment, breathing hard, feeling that odd sense of power and stability slowly ebbing away, and tried to decide how he felt about this.

He'd never had any sort of power before. He couldn't say he didn't like it.

It was at about that moment that he realized he was being watched. Peering out of the forest were the hunters he'd lunched with, what felt like hours ago. They seemed to have picked up some friends on their way there. They were watching him with expressions of mingled awe and horror. Looking around at the bodies surrounding him, it occurred somewhat belatedly to Arima that he might not be presenting the best image of himself.

"Please don't jump to any conclusions," he began.

"Oh, don't worry. I know exactly what this is," said the leader of the hunters.

One of the younger men murmured in tones of amazement, "It's the blessing of Aurite. I'd heard of it, but I'd never actually seen anyone who had it..."

Arima blinked. "What is this blessing you speak of?"

"I'd have thought you'd known," said the leader. "The priests of Aurite are blessed with powers of judgment over the wicked. They're said to be almost invincible against an enemy that truly deserves punishment." He prodded one of the fallen men with a toe. "And these sons of imps have been marauding in these woods for months now. They killed three merchants last week and stole all their goods. We had no idea they were making their camp this far in, though."

"I see," said Arima, trying to sift through this information. "So what you're saying is that you are now agreeing that I am, in fact, the chosen high priest of Aurite?"

"I don't know about high priest," said the leader, "but you must be _a_ priest of Aurite. No ordinary man could have fought like that."

"I'm glad you think so," said Arima. "Would you mind explaining that to my friend?"

A few of the hunters remained behind to truss up the survivors and clean up the mess, but five of them followed him down the winding path to the bandit camp. While three of them fanned out to inspect the camp, two of them followed Arima to where Shou was still tied up. The young man looked up at them with disbelief in his eyes.

"You came back," he said, when Arima had removed his gag.

"I came back," Arima agreed. He reached for his knife, realized it was still stained from the fight, and cast around for something to clean it with. One of the hunters stepped forward and passed him a fresh knife, taking Arima's in exchange and beginning to scrub it with a handkerchief.

"Those guys were going to kill you," Shou said, still staring. "I saw them. They were carrying knives and bows, and they were going to kill you. Why didn't they kill you? Why didn't you just run away?" He lowered his eyes. "You should have run away. Then you would have been safe. That's what everyone else does, when I need help."

"I didn't run away because I'm your friend," he said gently, "and they didn't kill me because I'm a priest of Aurite, and he looks after his people."

Shou's brow furrowed. "But you aren't a priest. Everyone says you're not. You're just seeing things."

"If he's seeing them," said one of the hunters, "then we are too. This man has Aurite's blessing, sure enough. We just watched him take down a dozen or more hardened criminals single-handedly. Never seen anything like it."

Shou stared dubiously at Arima. "So you really were blessed by a god... and you're going to be a priest."

"I'm going to try," said Arima. "Whether I will or not hinges heavily on whether or not I can still make it to the City of Seven Pillars." He cut away the last of Shou's bonds and stepped back, returning the knife he'd borrowed and accepting his own clean one in return. "Are you still going to come with me?"

"Of course I'm coming with you!" said Shou. "I don't care if you're crazy or not - you just saved my life. I'm sticking with you."

"You could go back home," said Arima. "These gentlemen would see you safely there."

Shou shook his head. "No, I'm sticking with you. I want to go to the city, too." More quietly, he added, "and you're the only real friend I've got."

Arima smiled. "Then I'll be glad to have your company."

Shou smiled back. It was probably the most genuine smile Arima had ever seen him wear. Silently, Arima thanked Aurite - not just for saving him, but for allowing him to save this boy as well.

 _We did good today,_ he thought with satisfaction. _I think even if everyone is right about me and I'm never going to be a priest, I'm glad I went on this trip._

The hunter he'd borrowed the knife from held out the grip towards him.

"You might as well keep this," he said. "I've got more, and it looks like you could put it to good use. After a fight like that, you deserve a battle trophy. Gods bless me, I've never seen anyone fight like that before."

Arima accepted the gift graciously. When the hunter had moved on again, Arima just stood there, contemplating his new toy. He didn't really need a knife - he already had one, and his lash suited him well enough - but he appreciated the gift. There was something very authoritative about the feel of the blade in his hands. It reminded him, just a little, of how he'd felt the moment the world had snapped into focus, containing only himself and those who needed punishing.

He smiled a little as he tucked the knife into his belt. Somehow, he thought he was going to manage being a priest just fine.


	4. The High Priest of Aurite

"Once upon a time," Arima read, "there was a man who had a grudge against Pearlite..."

It was night in the little valley. It had been a week since Arima and his traveling companion had left the ravine of the bandits, and in that time, they had both come to take great enjoyment in the nightly ritual of story telling. By Arima's estimate, they were now three-quarters of the way through his copy of _The Book of the Gods_ , and he was beginning to wonder what they were going to do when they ran out of book.

"He believed that the pursuit of physical beauty was a sign of shallowness and selfishness," Arima read on, "and he used his arts to create a magic mirror meant to reveal the true nature of those it reflected..."

As he read on, he watched over the edge of the book as Shou settled down for the night. He was already tucked under his blanket, in much the same attitude as Arima had first seen him. Very little of him showed but his eyes, heavy-lidded and sleepy. The two of them had been slowly becoming more comfortable around each other, but that was as far as the boy had progressed. When they passed through a town, Shou would hide behind Arima and let him do all the talking. It was a bit maddening. Arima was the one who had a price on his head; what was the point of having a traveling companion at all if he couldn't help do the one thing that was relatively safe for him but dangerous for Arima? And yet, Arima didn't have the heart to scold him about it. Shou had apparently made up his mind that Arima was all right, but he clearly was not ready to extend that trust to everyone.

"...but when Pearlite looked in the mirror, the man was amazed to see that the reflection did not change," he continued. "When the man expressed surprise, the god only laughed. 'Foolish mortal,' he said. 'What made you think this mirror shows men as they really are? How could you ever know for sure? This is only a toy to show you men as they believe they are...'"

He finished the story and gently closed the book. Shou had fallen asleep. Arima put his book away and tucked the blanket a little more snugly around the sleeping boy's shoulders. Then he settled himself into his own blankets, but he did not go to sleep. The night was peaceful and pleasantly warm, the stars were bright, and he was content just to sit quietly and let his mind wander. There was, according to what he'd been told, only one village left between him and the City of Seven Pillars. He was almost there. In a few days, he would finally know for sure, not just from promises but from genuine experience, what the rest of his life was going to be like.

A warm breeze blew over him, and he sighed contentedly. The thought of finally reaching his goal gave him a glow of anticipation. He hoped Aurite would be glad to see him there. Perhaps he'd even greet Arima in person - perhaps even smile at him again, offer a few words of praise. It still gave him a pleasant quiver inside to remember how it had felt when Aurite placed a hand on his shoulder...

"Easy there, champ," said a laughing voice. "I'm not here to work on you tonight."

Arima looked up, startled. Someone new had arrived in his camp without him noticing. The newcomer appeared to be a young man dressed flamboyantly in up-to-the-minute fashions (ornate, expensive, and completely impractical in the middle of nowhere) and who wore his bright pink hair held back with a cloth band. He was grinning widely. Arima just stared at him. If you looked at any of the newcomer's features individually, they were no more than slightly above average, but taken all together, he was breathtaking, though it was hard for Arima to put his finger on exactly why. Perhaps it had something to do with the way he carried himself, the way he smiled so confidently or the way his eyes glinted with mischievous good humor. Whatever it was, it was powerful enough to keep Arima from thinking very clearly.

"Not here to..." he repeated, puzzled.

The stranger laughed. "I hear you met my husband. One of 'em, anyway. Pretty, isn't he?"

Arima gaped as it suddenly clicked into place. "You're Vesta!"

"Got it in one," Vesta agreed cheerfully.

"But what are you doing here?" Arima asked.

"Heh, don't worry. I keep my hands off Aurite's people," said Vesta. "They're all too uptight to be fun to mess with. Nah, I'm here to check on that guy." He jerked a thumb at Shou.

"Why him?" Arima asked.

"Because he's lonely. Lonely people always get my attention. I just can't resist going to work on them," said Vesta. "Try to get the guy to talk to people besides you, won't you? I can only do so much without getting intrusive."

"I've been trying," Arima pointed out.

Vesta shrugged. "It's always the tricky ones that work out best in the end," he said, mostly to himself. "Anyway, I figured I might as well look in on Aurite's new high priest while I was down here. Everybody up there is gossiping about you, you know."

"They are?" That was an idea that had not occurred to Arima. He had vaguely assumed that this business was between him and Aurite.

"Oh, yeah. It's almost as much fun as gossiping about who's dating who," said Vesta cheerfully. "You should have heard some of the rumors going around when I was shopping for a new high priest. Everybody wants to be in the know."

"I hope I'm providing adequate entertainment," Arima murmured.

"Well, the bit with the bandits was fun," said Vesta. "Anyway, I'll be watching! And hey, let me give you a tip: the next town up the road has two big temples: one to Aurite and one to Sulfur. You should drop in on both of them and pay your respects. It'll be educational."

"I suppose education is important," Arima agreed. "Especially in my position. I wasn't brought up to this..."

"Most high priests aren't," said Vesta. "They work directly with the god they serve, so they get picked as much for personality as anything. There's a lot more to being a high priest than just rattling off the litanies once a week. They have to actually get along with their god. You'll see what I mean when you get there."

"Get where?" asked Arima, already confused.

Vesta laughed. "You'll find that out when you get there, too. Well, it's been nice talking to you, but I gotta run. Lots to do tonight." He stood up and brushed himself off. "If you do drop by Sulfur's temple, remember to leave a little something for him."

"It's becoming a habit," said Arima dryly.

Vesta laughed again, stepped straight into the campfire, and disappeared. Arima just stared. Gods, he reflected, seemed to be a lot more casual than he'd realized. Some of them, anyway. At least Aurite had been properly formal, the way a god should be. It was nice, Arima mused, as he settled down to sleep, that he would be serving a superior class of god. With that comforting thought in mind, he closed his eyes and slipped into pleasant dreams.

* * *

"You don't have to come with me, you know," said Arima.

Shou shook his head. "I don't know my way around. I'd just get lost."

"I'm not going to be doing anything interesting," Arima pointed out. "And I might be here a while. You should go explore the town, maybe see about finding a place to stay for the night."

Shou looked entirely doubtful about this proposition, and Arima stifled a sigh. As fond as he was of the boy, he was beginning to feel just a little bit tired of being treated like a security blanket. Apparently Shou had gone from doubting his sanity to believing him capable of anything, and that included protecting him from any real or imagined harm that might come his way. Arima hadn't yet had the nerve to ask him what he thought he was going to do when Arima finally reached the temple in Seven Pillars and they could no longer travel together.

"I'd like to see the temple, though," said Shou. "We had a temple to Sulfur back in my old hometown - my mother left offerings once a month to keep our business going - but I've never been in a temple to Aurite before."

"Suit yourself," said Arima, bowing to the inevitabe. "But feel free to leave if you get bored."

They were having this conversation as they worked their way down the busy main road. This was a lively town, and a lot of people were out and about on business. Arima had quickly decided that there was no point in trying to keep his head down, not if he was going to walk right up to the local priest and introduce himself. If someone _did_ object to his presence there, the resident priest would presumably be able to tell that he was genuine and vouch for him.

The temple, when they found it, was a beautiful thing, made entirely of pure white marble, gleaming in the sun like a snow sculpture. A broad flight of steps climbed gracefully up to an entryway lined with graceful columns. The walls were punctuated by tall stained glass windows, and in between were bas-relief carvings of Aurite aiming his bow at the earth. For all its lavish detail, the unrelenting pure white made it seem rather stark.

Arima loved it on sight.

The front door was of pale wood, bound in what looked like real gold. This temple, Arima thought, must be doing very well, or at least had been at some point in time. He pushed the doors open and stepped reverently into the sanctuary. The inside was even lovelier than the outside. The floor was of more pale wood, and the walls of yellow marble. The tall windows, their panes shaded in hues of saffron, goldenrod, and amber, filled the room with warm light. The effect was heightened further by a profusion of candles in golden candelabrum. The air smelled of incense and fine green tea. Arima walked slowly down the center aisle, gazing in wonder up at the frescoed ceiling, while Shou trailed uncertainly behind him.

"Whoa," said Shou softly. His voice echoed around the empty room.

Arima couldn't find it in him to break the silence, but he agreed with his companion. This place was truly magnificent. A part of him, in fact, wished he never had to leave. At the same time, it wasn't the sort of dangerous temptation that had nearly kept him in Kurotori's gardens forever. Rather, it inspired him, and made him more certain than ever that his destiny lay in the temple in Seven Pillars.

The sound of footsteps made him turn, and he turned to see a young man of roughly his own age, dressed in the black and gold robes that marked him as a priest of Aurite. He regarded his guests coolly through his spectacles.

"May I help you?" he asked.

"Ah, hello," said Arima. "I take it you are the chief priest here?"

"Yes," the young man answered. "I am Priest Ichiban Itsumo. And you?"

"My name is Ibushi Arima," he replied. "I'm making a pilgrimage to the City of Seven Pillars to see the great temple. This is my companion, Shou Komi, who is keeping me company on my journey."

"I see," said Itsumo, looking a bit more interested. "That's very admirable of you. I'm always happy to greet another devotee of our great lord Aurite." He did not sound happy. His voice had a peculiar monotone quality that made him sound entirely unenthusiastic about whatever he said.

"I was hoping," said Arima, "that you would let me serve as your initiate for a few days. I'd welcome the chance to learn."

The priest regarded him thoughtfully. Arima awaited his verdict with a measure of confidence. The initiates were the lowest of the priesthood, who spent their days learning the litanies and lore of their particular faith, observing services, and performing the menial chores around the temple. Arima doubted that any priest would turn away someone offering to take up the position, even temporarily.

"Of course," said Itsumo. "All who wish to honor Aurite are welcome here." He turned his attention onto Kou. "And you? Are you interested in joining the priesthood as well?"

Shou shook his head. "Not me, sorry. I'm just the guy who helped run a shop. All we ever did was leave offerings to Sulfur once a month..."

Arima saw the priest press his lips together tightly, and a small frown line appeared above the bridge of his glasses. He wondered what had brought that on. As far as Arima knew there was no animosity between Aurite and Sulfur. Perhaps it was just that this priest couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't want to follow his own personal deity.

"Still," said Itsumo at last, "loyalty is a quality we who serve Aurite must respect. I would not want to separate faithful traveling companions. You may both stay in the initiates' quarters as long as you need to." He turned his attention back on Arima. "I am aware of the rules for a holy pilgrimage. If you are willing to stay here and work for a few days, I will supply you with everything you need to get you to the City of Seven Pillars when you're ready to leave."

"You're too kind," said Arima graciously.

"Let me show you to your rooms," said Itsumo, turning and beckoning them to follow.

The rooms reserved for the initiates were small and bare, as was to be expected. Devotion to Aurite was not for the faint of heart, or for those who were over-fond of self-indulgence. These narrow little rooms had just enough space for a bed, a wardrobe, a washstand, and a small desk. That was all right. An initiate would spend most of their day at their labors, and needed these rooms only to sleep and groom themselves, and for the occasional moment of privacy. There were enough rooms available for up to twenty initiates, but at the moment only eight were serving there, so Arima and Shou were able to have rooms next door to each other. Itsumo invited them to put their belongings away, to make use of the bathing facilities further down the hall, and to spend the rest of the afternoon exploring the temple and the town.

"You can begin your work as an initiate in the morning, first thing," said Itsumo to Arima. Turning to Shou, he added, "You may participate or not as you like. I invite you to at least join us for morning services."

Shou looked uncertain, as he usually did when someone other than Arima addressed him directly, but he agreed that he'd think about it.

It took only a brief while for the two of them to unpack their meager belongings and make themselves at home in their new temporary rooms. There was, unsurprisingly, a little dish and some incense cones on his new desk, and Arima took a moment to light one and offer a few words of thanks that he'd made it this far, and that he had this opportunity to finally start learning his new job. Then he went to join Shou in the bath. Shou was already there, sunk in the tub in an attitude that suggested he would probably slip underwater and try to drown himself in a stranger came in and found him there, but he relaxed a little when Arima arrived.

"I'll bet you're glad to finally be washing in hot water again," Arima observed, once he'd joined his friend in the pool. He might have been a gardener, and had a gardener's appreciation of dirt, but after weeks of cold and irregular baths, he was glad for the chance of a proper scrub.

"I feel kind of weird, staying in a temple like this," said Shou. "What have I got to do with Aurite? I just try not to get on his bad side, like everyone else."

"Perhaps if you do some work around the temple for him, you'll earn some points in your favor," Arima suggested.

"Could be," said Shou, with his customary uncertainty. "So what do you think of that priest guy? What'd he say his name was? Itsumo?"

"Ichiban Itsumo," Arima agreed. "He's rather imposing, isn't he? A very grand manner."

"He makes me feel like I'm about three inches tall," said Shou. "That way he pushes his glasses up his nose and just _looks_ at you. Doesn't he make you feel that way?"

Arima shrugged. "I've met gods, remember? It will take more than a priest to rattle me."

Still, the comment gave him something to think about. With his mild features and genial manner, no one had ever thought to call _him_ imposing. He was by nature unobtrusive. It was all very well for the priesthood and even the gods to recognize him as a servant of Aurite, but what about the ordinary, everyday people? How was he going to get them to take him seriously, to listen to the things he told them? Was he going to need to cultivate a haughty demeanor like this Itsumo character? He wasn't sure he was up to it.

 _Well, perhaps if I spend some time here, something will rub off on me,_ he thought hopefully.

And speaking of things rubbing off, he had several days' worth of trail dust that needed to be removed. Putting all loftier thoughts out of his mind, he settled himself in for a good scrub.

* * *

The life of an initiate was a busy one. Every morning, he was roused at dawn and hustled off to morning prayers. After that, it was time for breakfast, which he either helped to prepare or helped to clean up after, depending on the duty roster. Then there was a morning service, attended not only by the temple residents but by anyone in the town who felt the need for guidance from the god of law and order. Then there were chores to be done: all the menial dusting and sweeping and polishing that the more important clergymen couldn't be bothered that came lunch, which again he had to help prepare himself, and in the afternoon he had lessons. He quite enjoyed that part. He had always done well in school, and these lessons were things he was motivated to learn. Then came dinner, evening services, and nightly meditations, after which everyone would have an hour or two to bathe and relax before they had to go to bed and rest up to do it all again tomorrow. Arima settled into the routine with surprising ease. The speed with which he picked up his lessons earned him some small respect among his peers, as did his willingness to perform the dull and dirty chores they were all assigned without complaining. Within a day or two, they were treating him as though he'd been there all along.

Also, he had to admit that while he was fond of Shou and considered him a friend, it was good to have a break from him after days on the road with only him for company. Shou attended the public services and sat with Arima and the other temple staff during their meals, but that was all Arima saw of him. He did not attend any of the private worship sessions that the clergy held, nor did he attend any lessons, and he could not be persuaded to use the baths when the rest of the initiates did. Arima gathered that Priest Itsumo, unable to tempt Shou into a life of devotion, had instead turned him into a sort of general errand-runner, sending him out into town to do the shopping, dispatching him to fetch books from the temple library to help Itsumo prepare his sermons, delivering messages, and generally doing anything that didn't fall on the regular chore roster.

"Does it bother you?" Arima asked him one day, while the two of them were having lunch.

"Does what?" Shou asked. He reached for a piece of bread in the communal basket, then pulled back as someone else grabbed for the piece he'd been reaching for.

"Working for Priest Itsumo," said Arima. "I thought you said you found him intimidating."

Shou squirmed. "Well, he is, kind of. But I want to be useful, and it's easier just doing what he tells me than to have to..." He waved a hand vaguely, and Arima mentally translated: easier to work with just one man who doesn't talk much than to work alongside a lot of rowdy initiates who might expect him to socialize.

"You don't have to stay here, you know," said Arima gently. "You could check into an inn, or go on without me. I'm sure you could find a caravan that would take you."

"No, this is fine," said Shou quickly. "This is interesting. I'm learning things. I want to stay a little longer."

He straightened his shoulders a little, raised his chin, and managed to snatch up the ladle to a dish of baked squash before one of the other initiates could grab it. Arima smiled.

 _Well, what do you know. He's got some backbone in there after all. Priest Itsumo may not be rubbing off on me, but it looks like he's having a good influence on Shou._

In fact, it seemed that Shou was interacting more with the priest than Arima was. He saw Itsumo at prayers and services, of course, but always at a distance. The classes were taught mainly by two lesser priests and an acolyte, and the chief priest usually ate in his rooms rather than socialize with everyone else.

Then one morning, Arima was assigned the duty of sweeping the sanctuary. He was rather proud of this - being the new man on the job, he'd been given the most boring and difficult jobs up until then. The fact that he'd done them without complaining, and occasionally swapped chores with his fellows so that they could get out of jobs they particularly disliked, had apparently started to pay off for him. Sweeping the sanctuary was a coveted task because it was easy work in a pleasant, quiet place, the holiest part of the temple, and it took long enough that whoever got the job wouldn't have to do anything else that morning. Arima had been surprised to get the job, but he accepted it graciously and set to work. Now he was working his way steadily from the front of the sanctuary to the back, humming softly to himself and listening to the sounds of the acolytes as they tended to the altar behind him.

"You seem happy in your work."

Arima couldn't help it - he jumped. Without his realizing it, Priest Itsumo had come up silently behind him. Getting himself under control with a supreme effort of will, Arima turned to greet him with what he hoped was a pleasant expression.

"I am," he said. "Very much so."

"That's good," said the priest. "Your teachers bring me good reports of you, you know. They say you're diligent, courteous, and a quick learner."

Arima bowed his head in acceptance of the praise. "I'm doing my best."

"We need more of your kind here," said Itsumo. "Are you sure you won't consider staying here?"

"My calling is elsewhere," said Arima, "but thank you anyway."

Itsumo turned away, looking dissatisfied. He frowned as he looked up at the two acolytes who were replacing the burned down candles at the altar.

"There aren't enough of us," he said. "This used to be a thriving temple. In my grandfather's day, they were turning away initiates because there wasn't room for them all. Now not half the spaces for them are filled, and even the congregation is dwindling. Ever since they built that new temple..."

"New temple?" asked Arima blankly.

"The temple to Sulfur, on the other side of town," said Itsumo. His voice was bitter. "They've been luring the congregants away in droves."

Ah. So this was the source of the irritation Arima had sensed before, when Shou had mentioned making offerings to Sulfur. He made sympathetic noises.

"People are weak, that's the problem," Itsumo went on. "They lose their nerve when they're asked to do something difficult. Why should they bother to hold themselves to any sort of standards when they can patronize a god who asks next to nothing of them? And what do they get in exchange? Money and creature comforts. Fat lot of good that's going to do them, when it comes their time to be judged. But when they're in trouble, who do they come running to? They come here, and do you think we see any of their precious money when it comes time to leave offerings? No, they burn a little incense and leave."

"But they do come here," said Arima soothingly. "People always gravitate towards anything new. I'm sure as soon as they begin to realize how much good you do here, they'll come back."

He'd meant it as a general "you", but Itsumo seemed to take it as a personal compliment. He settled down visibly, the tension going out of his shoulders and the lines of his brow smoothing. He adjusted his glasses and smoothed his hair down with one hand.

"Yes, well, it's in my bloodline, you know," he said.

"No, I didn't know that," said Arima, glad to get the priest onto a more positive topic.

"It's true," said Itsumo. "My family has served as Aurite's priests and priestesses for generations - at least seven that I know of for sure. Some of them have even been selected to become high priests. In fact, family legend says that I'm a direct male-line descendant of Aurite's first priest, all the way back at the dawn of humanity."

"Amazing," said Arima, duly impressed. Even if the legend was untrue, all that family history was a little awe-inspiring to someone who could only say that his great-grandfather had been a cooper and his grandfather managed a lumberyard.

"I've always thought it must be true," said Itsumo. "Nothing means more to me than my work here. I've been training for the priesthood ever since I was old enough to walk. I had all the prayers and litanies learned by heart even before I could read them. I've read every book in the library at least once, most of the more than once. I've even made a pilgrimage to the City of Seven Pillars and spent two years studying under the high priest there. He said he'd never had such an adept pupil."

"I... see," said Arima. He was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable. "That's very impressive."

Itsumo looked as close to happy as his unexpressive features would allow.

"My ambition," he said confidingly, "is to become the High Priest of Aurite myself someday."

"Oh?" said Arima.

"It would only be reasonable," said Itsumo. "Who else could be more qualified? I have the knowledge, the training, the background... I'm perfect for the job. The old high priest is getting on in years, and he'll want to find someone young and vigorous to take his place. The old high priest knows me; he'll be sure to select me."

"I thought," said Arima carefully, "that high priests were selected directly by their gods."

Itsumo frowned. "Well, yes..." he said slowly, "but the high priests are the mouthpieces of the gods. Naturally Aurite would make his will known through his chief servant. The high priest would probably intervene with him on my behalf." He still looked uncertain a moment, then rallied. "Anyway, Aurite knows of my service better than anyone. He wouldn't make the mistake of choosing someone lesser."

"You could be right," Arima answered quietly.

He thought about that conversation for a long time, while he finished sweeping the floor. The sanctuary was a very good place for thinking, and this was a thought he'd been struggling with for a while now. Was it possible that Itsumo was right, after all? Arima wasn't quite prepared to believe that Aurite had made a mistake, but he was willing to allow that he himself could have gotten confused at some point. People had been telling him all along that no matter what he believed, he just wasn't high priest material. Clearly, there were other people better suited to the position. Itsumo was born and bred for the job, and he knew it better than Arima could hope to know it in years of study. He had the kind of grand, imposing manner that a high priest should have to get his congregants' respect and admiration. He could all too easily imagine the high priest hoping to see his former protege, someone he knew and trusted, returning to him, only to get some raw new recruit who knew barely more than the greenest initiate.

And yet...

 _What did Vesta say? Something about the personality..._

He chewed over that thought for quite some time without coming to any firm conclusions. He must have looked rather abstracted, because as they were leaving dinner, Shou pulled him aside.

"Something bothering you?" he asked. "You look worried."

"Just thinking about things," said Arima. He regarded his friend thoughtfully. "Shou, what do you think of the head priest here?"

"Um..." Shou squirmed and looked down at his feet. "I dunno."

"Come on, I won't tell anyone what you say. I'm just curious," Arima persisted. "I mean, you've spent more time around him than I do. You must have formed an opinion of him by now."

"I don't know," said Shou again. "I mean, I thought he was pretty scary at first, but now that I've gotten to know him, he doesn't seem so bad. I mean, he lets me stay here even though he didn't have to, and he's really smart and knows a lot, and doesn't mind explaining things to me. Some of the stuff he talks about is really interesting. And he works really hard, harder than anybody. Sometimes he gets up really early in the morning or late at night and goes to his study to work."

Arima raised an eyebrow. "And how do you know that?"

Shou blushed. "Sometimes I can't sleep. He lets me come in and help him. I make tea, and we just talk about stuff."

It occurred to Arima that he just might have a solution here to what he was going to do with Shou when they finally had to part ways. At the same time, it did make him wonder. If Priest Itsumo had what it took to bring someone as reticent as Shou out of his shell, what couldn't he do?

"Why are you asking all this stuff, anyway?" Shou asked.

"Who knows?" said Arima vaguely. "I just wondered, that's all."

"Oh," said Shou. "So where are you going after meditations? The baths?"

Arima shook his head. "Not tonight. I think I might go for a walk."

And that was what he did. He sat through evening services and meditations more impatiently than usual. Normally, he enjoyed them as a chance to relax and let his mind clear after the end of a day of lessons, but now he could barely keep his attention on the prayers he was supposed to be reciting. As soon as the final benediction was recited, he slipped out the door to the sanctuary and wandered into the streets.

He had never actually had the time to look around at the city before. He had spent his entire visit inside the walls of the temple. Now he felt a bit rueful about that - even the boy who had once refused to come out of his bundle of blankets had seen more of this place than Arima had. Now he walked up and down streets more or less at random, turning matters over in his mind.

Did he really want to become a high priest? The answer, he had already decided, was _yes_. If he was being honest with himself, he could do nothing but admit that he wanted it more than he'd ever wanted anything. But could he do the job? And even if he could, were there people who could do it better? Those questions were harder to answer. On the one hand, he was sure of what Aurite had told him, and he didn't want to believe that Aurite could be mistaken in this. On the other hand, he was supposed to be a god of justice, and was it really right for him to promote a nobody with no experience to preside over people who were older and wiser than himself? Was it fair, for example, that Itsumo had worked and studied all his life for a job he would be denied? How was he supposed to reconcile these things? And if he couldn't make an accurate judgment now, how was he supposed to make these kinds of decisions when he was put into a position of real power?

 _This job is looking a lot more complicated than I thought it would be._

He walked and walked while the moon rose above the city. He should have been in bed by now. Itsumo would probably be annoyed with him, if he knew Arima was out past curfew. Even if no one found out he was here, he'd still probably regret this outing when it came time to get up in the morning. Still, sleep was the furthest thing from his mind. He continued walking, around and around, in a series of ever-expanding loops.

Something bright caught his eye. Arima paused, looking around for the source of the flash. When he couldn't find it, he backed up a few paces, slowly scanning the near-empty street until he saw what had attracted his eye. It was a silver coin, wedged into a crack in the cobblestones. He wouldn't have seen it at all if the moonlight hadn't glinted off of it as he'd walked past.

 _Someone has made an offering to Sulfur,_ he thought, with some humor. Long-standing tradition held that any money you lost - not just invested badly, but _really_ lost - should be treated as an offering to Sulfur, so that he might take it and bless you with more money. That train of thought gave Arima an idea. He stooped to pick up the coin. Aurite had told him that he was not to bring any money on this trip, nor accept it as payment from anyone else, but Arima didn't think the god would mind him picking up a coin if he intended to give the money up as an offering.

"Excuse me," he said to a passerby. "Could you tell me the way to Sulfur's temple?"

Within a few minutes, he was standing outside of the city's other temple. He gave it a measuring look. It was not quite as large as the temple to Aurite, but it looked newer, and had a handsome gold dome on its roof that glittered attractively in the moonlight. The windows showed lights burning inside, so Arima strode up to the front door and let himself in.

He was not surprised to find people inside, given Itsusmo's account of this temple's popularity. Most of them looked to be townspeople, there to pray to Sulfur or make offerings. A few priests also stood near the front of the sanctuary, speaking to visitors about their individual concerns. Arima made his way quietly down one of the side aisles until he could reach the altar. He dropped the coin - one of many, he noted - into a golden dish.

 _I hope you'll accept this offering, even if I'm not one of your devotees._ He paused a beat. _Also, I met your husband. He says hello._

When he opened his eyes again, he glanced briefly into the dish. Then he did a double-take. There were several coins there, but the one he'd left was gone.

 _What in the..._

A small metallic chiming noise caught his attention. He turned around to see a fair-haired young man leaning against one of the walls. He was dressed in robes that glittered like gold, and golden chains hung at his waist and throat. He was casually flipping the coin with one thumb. With his free hand, he raised a finger to his lips to signal for silence. Arima nodded slightly, then turned and began walking towards the exit. The stranger followed him.

Once they were safely outside and out of earshot, Arima bowed politely to his new friend and said, "Good evening, my lord."

Sulfur smiled at him. "You're growing accustomed, I see."

"I can't very well do anything else," Arima pointed out. "You all keep showing up."

"That's the life of a priest," said Sulfur amiably. "It was very considerate of you to drop by my temple. You didn't have to."

"It seemed like the right thing to do," said Arima.

"You have good instincts," said Sulfur. "You should learn to trust them more often."

"I don't know if I even know what my instincts are telling me right now," Arima admitted. "Everything is so confusing."

"What are you confused about, precisely?" asked Sulfur mildly, as if this were all academic. "Or are you confused about that too?"

"Well..." Arima considered, trying to find the question that would sum up all his insecurities. "Why me? Why would Aurite choose me when there are others who seem like they'd be so much better at it?"

Sulfur's smile was amused. "Now, how would I know that? It isn't as though Aurite tells me these things. To tell the truth, he isn't all that fond of explaining his actions to people. He just does what he feels needs to be done, and that should be enough for all of us."

"I... see," said Arima.

"The important thing to remember," said Sulfur, "is that he usually does have good reasons for what he does, even if they aren't always obvious at the time. None of us are perfect, but he's been doing his job a long time and he's learned how to be very good at it. I may not know precisely why he chose you, but I don't think he made a mistake."

Arima said nothing. They walked in silence for a few seconds while he digested this information.

"You have a high priest of your own, yes?" he asked thoughtfully.

Sulfur nodded. "She's a very capable woman."

"What do you think makes a good high priest, then?"

"Ah, now _that_ is the right question to ask," he said, sounding pleased. "A high priest is special. They serve as the earthly representative of their god on earth. A high priest, speaking in their official capacity, is speaking for the gods. It takes a certain kind of person to do that. A high priest must be, hm... malleable, let us say. Someone who is willing to put aside their own opinions and desires and let someone else work through them. It requires humility, devotion, and a great deal of trust."

Arima turned this over in his mind for a while.

"Thank you," he said at last. "I think that was what I wanted to know."

"Glad to help," Sulfur replied. "I am the god of prosperity, you know. Sometimes people forget that not all prosperity involves money. Sometimes it just means succeeding in what you set out to do." He smiled. "For what it's worth, you have my blessing... even if I don't think you really need it."

Then there was a cool wind, scented with amber and sandalwood, and then he was gone. Arima stood for a moment, feeling somehow that it was disrespectful to simply rush off. Then he turned and began walking very deliberately back towards the temple.

He was not altogether surprised to find Itsumo standing on the steps waiting for him. His usually unexpressive face was fixed in a scowl.

"Did you really think I wouldn't notice you were gone?" he demanded. "You're out past your curfew."

"I'm sorry," said Arima. "I had something I needed to do."

"That's no excuse," said Itsumo. "What could you possibly be thinking about at this time of night that justifies you being out wandering around at this hour?"

"I was considering my suitability for the priesthood," Arima explained.

Itsumo sniffed. "Well, perhaps you should consider that if you intend to break the rules whenever it suits you, you might be better suited to some other line of work."

"I believe," said Arima mildly, "that it is for Aurite to decide who serves him, not you."

Itusmo drew himself up. "I'll thank you to remember who you're speaking to. I am chief priest here, and you are nothing but an initiate."

"I remember who I'm speaking to," said Arima quietly. "You might not realize it, but I have a lot of respect for you. I wish I'd had all the opportunities you had. But there's one thing that I can't approve of."

Itusumo looked annoyed. "And what is that?"

"Did you ever ask Aurite if he wanted you for his high priest?"

Itsumo blinked. "But... of course he does. Who else is there?"

"That's the question you should have asked him," said Arima. "The task of a high priest is to perform the will of a god, even when he doesn't like or understand what he's being asked to do. A high priest can't put his own interests above those of his god. Can you really manage that?"

"Are you saying you don't think I'm fit for the job?" Itsumo snapped.

"I'm saying you should ask." Arima shrugged. "When I went out tonight, I had a lot of questions on my mind, so I asked a god. That's what priests do. They don't make up their minds for themselves. Otherwise, what would be the point of being a priest at all? Maybe Aurite does want you to be high priest someday. Maybe he wants you to stay here and work to revitalize this temple. Maybe he wants you to bring the congregants back from Sulfur's temple. Maybe he wants your temple and theirs to cooperate for the good of everyone. Ask."

For a moment, Itsumo looked blank. Then he scowled, his face going livid.

"You have no right to speak to me like that," he said. "You know what? I don't have to listen to this. Pack your bags. You are no longer welcome in this temple. Tomorrow morning, you are gone. Do you understand me?"

"I'm sorry you feel that way," said Arima. "But of course, if I'm no longer welcome, I won't stay. Good night, your holiness."

He stepped into the temple and began walking towards his rooms. He felt rather badly about how that had gone. He really had respected Itsumo. It was hard being the one to let him down.

Arima had only made it halfway to his destination when he met Shou in the hallway.

"Where have you _been_?" he asked, eyes wide and worried. "Ichiban has been really upset."

Ichiban? Oh right, that was the priest's given name. When had he and Shou gotten to be on a first-name basis, anyway? Itsumo had not struck Arima as the "first name basis" type, any more than Arima himself was.

"I went for a walk and missed curfew, that's all," said Arima. "Maybe you should talk to him, in a little while - after he's had some time to calm down. I think you would do a better job of soothing him than I would."

"You think so?" Shou asked.

"I'm sure of it," said Arima. "He likes you."

Shou blushed a little and said, "Well, if you're sure, I'll try."

Arima left him to it. Someone else could tell him they were being thrown out tomorrow. That was, of course, assuming they still were, and Shou didn't manage to calm the young priest down enough to forgive Arima his impertinence, which Arima was willing to allow was a possibility.

Then again, he didn't think he should bet on it. With a resigned sigh, he went to pack his things.

* * *

Arima did not sleep very well that night. Normally he was a sound sleeper, but tonight, every small noise jolted him awake, and the room seemed alternately too hot and too cold, depending on how he arranged his blankets. When he did finally sleep, it was to dream uneasily of wandering through the city streets, scanning the ground for a coin that he couldn't find. Finally he gave up, rolled out of bed, and pulled on his clothes. If Itsumo could stay up half the night praying and studying, so could he. Moving quietly so as to not wake the other initiates, Arima slipped out of his room and began walking towards the sanctuary. No matter how troubled his mind was, he was sure he could find some comfort there.

What he hadn't been expecting to find was other people. Arima paused in the doorway, evaluating the situation. The sanctuary was dark, lit only by the faint moonlight that spilled through the stained glass windows. When his eyes finally adjusted, he could just barely make out two barely moving figures; one that had Shou's shaggy hair and weatherbeaten clothing. Judging from the tones of their voices... well, Itsumo's tone had never been easy to read, but Arima guessed from the rapidity of his words and the way they slurred together that he was deeply upset about something, and that Shou was doing his best to comfort him.

 _I guess he asked, after all,_ thought Arima, with a touch of guilt.

He started to back away again, hoping to slip away before anyone noticed him. He stumbled in the dark, and the sound of him trying to regain his footing attracted the attention of the others.

"Oh," said Itsumo bitterly. "It's you again."

"I was just leaving," said Arima quickly.

"What, you're not going to stay and rub it in?" he snarled. "You were right. Aurite told me who his choice was. You can go ahead and laugh."

"I don't want to laugh at you," said Arima. "You were right. I do have a lot to learn before I'd be fit for the job. If I'd been you, I might have thought the same way."

Itsumo sniffled and straightened up to look at him. "No. You wouldn't have. You aren't the type to overestimate yourself." He winced. "Not like some people. I think I'm beginning to understand why Aurite chose you."

Arima stepped closer, close enough that he could set a hand on Itsumo's shoulder.

"Don't be too hard on yourself," he said. "You're still a fine priest. You just got a bit off-track, that's all."

Itsumo nodded. "I'm going to do better. I'm going to work hard and make this the finest temple I can, the way Aurite would want me to."

"I have complete faith in you," Arima assured him.

"Thank you," said Itsumo humbly. "I suppose you'll still be leaving tomorrow... you've got bigger and better places to be, after all. I'll make sure you two have supplies for your journey."

"You don't need to do that," said Shou.

"No, I promised," said Itsumo. "Especially you. You've been such a big help to me, and you didn't really need to work here at all."

"I know, but..." said Shou, and looked down at his hands. "I don't really want to leave."

Itsusmo looked surprised. Arima, however, only smiled a little. He'd been expecting something of the sort. What had Vesta said? Something about how he was always drawn to the lonely ones. Perhaps Itsumo had been lonely, too.

"Why would you want to stay here?" Itsumo asked. "You said yourself you weren't interested in becoming a priest."

"No, but I can still help you," said Shou. "I like being here and working with you." He raised his eyes hesitantly. "When I left home, I thought I was going to go live on my uncle's lands and be a gamekeeper. I thought I never wanted to see any people ever again. But now, I feel like if I never saw you again, I'd be really lonely, so I'd like to stay here. Or maybe I could get a place in town and come visit you. You know. If you don't mind my company."

"I... but... why?" Itsumo stammer. "Why would you want to stay with me?"

"Well, because I like you," said Shou. "You're smart, and confident, and you always have interesting things to talk about." He smiled a little. "Maybe if I spend enough time around you, I'll learn how to be more confident, too."

Itsumo was blushing now, too. He fiddled with the arms of his spectacles. "Well, I... yes, you can stay. Of course you can stay. I'd like that very much."

Arima smiled. "Well, I'll be sorry to lose my traveling companion, but I'm happy for you two. I'm glad something good came out of this trip for all of us."

As he started back to his room, he heard Itsumo saying to Shou, "We need to find you another place to stay. You can't exactly stay in the initiate quarters anymore, since you're not an initiate. The room next door to mine is empty right now..."

Arima was still smiling when he tucked himself back into bed. This time, he had no trouble at all in falling asleep, and if the god of dreams visited him, he didn't remember at all.

* * *

It took five more days to walk to the City of Seven Pillars. Arima had been surprised at the wrench he felt at leaving Shou behind, but Itsumo had been very generous in supplying him food and other necessities for the road, and seeing the two of them so happy together was a weight off of Arima's mind. He bid a fond farewell to both of them and set off with light steps.

As he passed by the temple of Sulfur, he thought he saw three young men - one fair-haired, two redheads - lounging on the front steps and watching him go by, but then the crowds surged around him, and when he looked again, the men were gone.

The weather was fair for the next few days, warm and sunny, without a hint of rain. The closer he got to the city, the lighter his spirits became. On his fifth day on the road, he got his first glimpse of the mythical Seven Spires he had heard so much about, and when he realized what they were, he had to stop and stare. When he'd first glimpsed them off on the horizon, he'd somehow imagined they were dead trees, leafless and stripped of limbs. When his mind finally processed them, his breath caught. When he had imagined pillars, he'd thought of, well, _pillars_ like the ones on the front of a temple - maybe a little bigger than most, but still within human scale. These were _enormous_ , great jagged columns of stone, rising higher than houses, higher than the tallest trees, higher even than mountains. They shouldn't have been able to stand under their own weight, and yet they loomed there, seven dark streaks looking like cracks in the sky. Arima could easily believe that these were, in truth, the arrows of Aurite.

 _I finally made it. I'm really here,_ he thought. Eagerness and nervousness washed over him in equal measures. With nothing more between himself and his goals than a few more hours walking, he was starting to have doubts again.

Nevertheless, he hitched up his pack a bit more securely and started forward with renewed energy. Just as sunset was approaching, he drew near the front doors of the great temple, and paused to take stock of it. All around him, people were wandering in and out of the sanctuary, but all he wanted to do at the moment was stop and stare.

The temple was very much like the one he'd stayed in with Priest Itsumo, but far larger and grander, built of golden stone and ornamented with real gold leaf. Moreover, it was huge, a city in itself. The front of the temple was open for guests, but the walls extending around it, he'd learned from the locals, contained an entire self-sufficient community, complete with livestock, gardens, and a well. The temple itself housed nearly fifty initiates, a dozen or so acolytes, and six full-time priests, as well as the high priest himself and a rotating series of guests. Arima could see two of the initiates now, sweeping the front landing at the top of the steps. They looked very smart in their black robes, and made him feel rather small and scruffy.

Still, this was the goal he'd set out for, and he wasn't going to stop now. Aurite had promised that they were expecting him. That would have to be good enough. Straightening his back, he started up the steps and approached one of the initiates.

"Excuse me," he said. "I would like to see the high priest, please. It's a matter of some importance." When the boy looked at him quizzically, he added, "Aurite sent me."

The boy's expression cleared. "Oh, you're that one! His holiness is waiting for you! Come this way!"

They led him eagerly inside, positively glowing with the delight of being the ones to welcome their honored guest. One of them fetched him a clean set of initiate's robes, while the other led him to the bathing area.

"You can wash and change here," he said. "We'll go tell his holiness that you're here, so he can get ready."

Arima, rather dazed by this show of hospitality, could only nod. Nevertheless, within a few minutes, he was clean and dry and dressed in his new finery. As soon as he stepped outside of the bathroom, one of the young initiates caught him by the sleeve and began leading him up to the second floor of the building. Arima soon realized he was being brought to the old priest's private quarters. It made him rather glad that he'd been allowed to clean up. It didn't seem right, tracking mud into someone's room.

The room he was escorted into was comfortable but low on fripperies, consisting of stone floors overlaid with plain but thick rugs, sturdy wooden furniture, and shelves crammed with old books and stacks of papers. Seated in a well-worn leather armchair was an old man of about eighty or so, with a long narrow face and a clear, intelligent gaze. He regarded Arima with interest as Arima and the two initiates came in. The boys bowed low to him, and after a beat, Arima did too.

"Thank you, that will do," said the priest. "Run along, boys. I'd like to chat with our guest in private."

The initiates scampered. Arima straightened, and the priest gestured that Arima should sit down in a second, matching chair that had been pulled up nearby. A small wooden table containing a rather handsome china tea set stood between the two chairs.

"Come and have some tea with me," said the priest. "You are the one Aurite sent, yes? My replacement?"

"Yes, sir," said Arima. He accepted the tea the old man passed him and sampled it carefully. It was excellent tea. He relaxed a little.

The old priest smiled. "Ah, I remember when I was in your place, coming to this grand temple for the first time with no idea what I was doing... The woman in charge back then was absolutely terrifying. A dear woman once you got to know her... but listen to me ramble. We're here to talk about you, aren't we? You must have had some adventures getting here."

"It was quite the journey," Arima agreed.

"Tell me about it," the priest suggested.

So while they drank their tea, Arima talked - about escaping through the second-story window, about his diversion into Black Swan Manor, about meeting Shou and fighting bandits, about Priest Itsumo, and about all the gods who kept wandering in and out of his life. The old priest listened, nodded, and made little encouraging comments. To Arima, it all sounded rather unbelievable, getting it all out in words.

"Well," said the priest at last, "you have had quite a time of it, haven't you? I think Aurite did a good job when he chose you." Something must have showed on Arima's face, because he smiled. "Worried that you aren't up to it after all?"

"I did make some mistakes," Arima admitted.

"As do we all, especially when you're first starting out," said the priest. "The gods always test their choices, when it comes time to bring them into the priesthood. Your choosing to walk away from Lord Kurotori and Black Swan Manor proved that your heart was in the work. Facing those bandits proved that you had faith in your god. Your experiences with young Itsumo gave you confidence. Without those experiences, you would not be as ready now as you are."

"I suppose that's so," Arima agreed. He smiled a little. "I am glad I got to see Kurotori's gardens, and helped Shou and Itsumo. It would have been worth it just for that."

"I'm glad you feel that way," said the priest. "Now, are you ready to begin your real training?"

Arima smiled at him. "Absolutely."

"Good," said the priest, smiling back. "We have a lot of work to do."

* * *

About a month later, a man came to the entrance of the temple. He was middle-aged and dressed in the clothes of a respectable merchant, a bit dusty from travel but still quite good. He frowned up at the edifice for a moment, considering. Then he made up his mind and marched inside.

A boy of about twelve in simple black robes approached him as soon as he set foot inside.

"Welcome, traveler," he said. "What can we do for you?"

"I'm looking for my son," he said. "He ran away from home weeks ago, and I have good reason to believe he was trying to make it here. I was hoping one of you had seen him."

The boy looked thoughtful a moment. Then something seemed to click in his mind, and his face brightened. "Oh! Would you like to speak to the high priest, then?"

"Ah, I don't know about that," said the man, rather abashed. "I'm sure he doesn't need to get involved in such a small family matter."

"It's all right," said the boy. "He'll know what to tell you."

Rather against his will, the man found himself being led into a small study, where two older acolytes were in serious discussion with a man seated behind a desk. Whoever it was, he was blocked from view by the bodies of the two acolytes, so the traveler couldn't immediately make out his face. Something about that voice, though... it was calm and measured, gentle but with an underlying strength, just the sort of voice a priest should have, and yet wasn't there something just a little familiar about it?

Then the two acolytes bowed and left the room, and the man saw the face of the high priest himself. The priest looked up at him in surprise, and then he smiled.

"Hello, Father," he said.

For a moment, Arima's father couldn't say anything. His face went red. Arima continued smiling, an amused twinkle creeping into his eyes.

"You look surprised," he said. "I told you I would be here."

"I... but... you... how?" his father blurted.

"The ways of the gods are strange and mysterious," said Arima. He stood up and put his arm around his father's shoulders. "Come on. We can go upstairs to my rooms and talk about it."

His father stared at him, his expression filled with amazement. "But... you really are a priest. Not just any priest - the high priest of Aurite. How can that even be true?"

"I'll tell you the whole story," Arima promised. He met his father's eyes. "I hope you're convinced I'm still in possession of my faculties now?"

His father stared uncomfortably at the floor. "Well, it seemed like... well, you know."

"I know," said Arima. "I wondered at times myself. But it all seems to have worked out. You'll tell everyone back home I'm all right, won't you?"

"Of course I will," his father replied. "They'll all be proud of you." After a pause, he said, " _I'm_ proud of you. I admit, I never thought you would amount to much, but I'm not sorry to have been proven wrong. You've become a man, and I couldn't be happier to see you here like this."

Arima glowed with pride, but all he said was, "Bring the rest of the family to visit sometime. I'd like to see them, to let them know there are no hard feelings. And to make sure my garden is being properly tended," he added, as an afterthought.

His father laughed and shook his head. "You and your gardens. Some things never change."

He clapped his son on the shoulder, and the two of them walked side by side down the corridor. Just for a moment, Arima thought he felt a second hand as well, resting on his other shoulder, warm and light as a sunbeam. Then it was gone again, but Arima knew who it had belonged to, and he smiled.


End file.
